Esquire 06/2016 Jennylyn Mercado

H A P PY FAT H E R’S D AY

MAN AT HIS BEST June 2016

Man of the House

Jennylyn Mercado New fathers, prodigal sons, & the myth of the modern family

Rodrigo Duterte Bill Murray Miguel Syjuco Nikolaj CosterWaldau

C O N T E N TS JUNE 2016

18 ESQ&A Bill Murray makes good conversation and a bet, to boot.

30 M A HB GAST RO Two takes on sandwiches that employ culinary wizardry.

34 M A HB DR I NK IN G Raise a glass to the pains and joys of fatherhood.

36 M A HB M U S IC Diego Mapa replays his education of sound for a new generation.

37 M A HB SEX A 40-something dad navigates dating in the midlife.

70 LI KE A F I SH NE E DS A B I CYC LE Keeping up with single mom Jennylyn Mercado.

2 ESQUIRE š JUNE 2016

C O N T E N TS JUNE 2016

38 M A HB TEC H A smartphone for the lensman.

40 T H E A N N OTAT E D P RO F I L E : Why Ricky Gervais prefers everything to be his own.

43 ST Y LE Watches of quiet innovation.

55 G RO O M I N G Serums get to the root of your issues.

61 N OTES AND ESSAYS Charlson Ong on San Juan and Cirilo F. Bautista on Iowa.

80 FAM I LY G UY Stories from four fathers.

88 THE INCREDIBLE, I RO N I C, I N F U R I AT I N G AWA K E N I N G O F M I G U E L SYJ U C O Life after authoring an important novel.

4 ESQUIRE š JUNE 2016

C O N T E N TS JUNE 2016

94 N I KO L A J C OST E R-WA L DAU: R E A L L I F E V E RS U S FA N TASY The Game of Thrones star opens up about the intricacies of his reality.

102 T H E FA L L A N D R I S E O F T H E T RU T H Champion fighter Brandon Vera charts his journey as a mixed-martial artist.

108 W H AT I’ V E LEARNED President-elect Rodrigo Duterte on the campaign trail.

116 S U R RO GAT E S A tale of fathers, sons, and executive assistants.

124 T H I S WAY O U T Honor Thy Father, and the Mafia family that broke its silence.

110 J U ST T H E T WO O F U S Dressing well at home.

6 ESQUIRE JUNE 2016

B E FO R E W E B EG I N JUNE 2016

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

THE POLITICS OF OUR FATHERS

Out of curiosity, I tried to look up the entry for “Fathers” in “The Encylopedia of Esquire” published as part of the 1000th issue special of our American mother (father?) title. No such luck: the “encylopedia” went from Fame and jumped to Fiction, though of course fatherhood is, and has always been, one of the recurring and central themes of this magazine, as it has always been one of the defining themes of a man’s life.

The topic can be a real can of worms, needless to say. I had a long lunch meeting with a friend I hadn’t seen in years, and I inquired about his father.

There was a long pause before he said, “Well, I’ll tread carefully here…” His father had not too long ago been in the news, much to the shame of my friend, and that was about the last straw in a very tentative relationship. “We are not our fathers,” he said, “fortunately.”

Now, any discussion of politics in the country is necessarily a discussion of fathers. Here’s one candidate who got as far as he did precisely because he was carrying his father’s name, but who insists that he cannot apologize for the sins of the elder. He’ll take the glory (and the money) but not the blame. Here’s

another candidate who whispers her father’s name at every campaign stop, his reputation her greatest inheritance.

It didn’t take too long either until the rowdy voting public began to calm down, faced with the imagery of the presidentas-stern-father and the VP-as-nurturingmother. All politics is indeed personal, one newscaster noted; what’s more personal than your parents?

One way or the other, our fathers define us, whether it’s by their absence or their presence, whether it’s by

showing us the light or the dark. We want to grow up to be like our dads, or exactly their opposite. Either way, it’s always a complex relationship—as perhaps all worthwhile relationships have to be on some level—and we have to tread carefully.

To be honest, we asked a whole lot of people to contribute to our small collection of essays about fatherhood in this issue, but a surprising number of them had decided that it was far too thorny a path to attempt, and so had politely disappeared after we told them what the topic was. The four brave men who did agree to write for us present very different perspectives on fatherhood, each having come into the role very differently from the others’; but at the core of it, if you look really closely, they’re also all the same. Perhaps it’s one of the mysteries of fatherhood, that each experience is unique, but also universal.

KRISTINE FONACIER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ESQ&A with Bill Murray, conducted by David Granger and Scott Raab.

This is Granger’s last interview as the editor in chief of Esquire US. p.18

8 ESQUIRE JUNE 2016

Nicolo, usually seen together with Wanlu, going solo for his first fashion spread. Kind of funny, and also nightmarish.

We’re sorry. p.110

Sarge Lacuesta’s original fiction. p.116

Watches: Bulgari, Breitling, and a whole bunch of other damn fine watches.

Because we haven’t recovered from Baselworld. p.43

PHOTOGRAPH FRUHLEIN ECONAR

WHAT WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT IN THIS ISSUE

B E FO R E W E B EG I N JUNE 2016

E D I TO R- I N - C H I E F

KRISTINE FONACIER

Managing Editor Patricia Barcelon

HEARST MAGAZINES INTERNATIONAL President/CEO

Features Editor

Duncan Edwards

Audrey N. Carpio

ESQUIRE INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS Editors-in-chief

ESQUIRE ABOUT THE WEB @EsquirePH

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Gautam Ranji

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Jiri Roth

Jeannette Chang

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Sarge Lacuesta

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Photographers Shaira Luna, Rennell Salumbre, Sonny Thakur, Gabby Cantero, Sam Lim, Artu Nepomuceno, Jason Quibilan

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Makeup & Grooming

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On our cover: JENNYLYN MERCADO

photographed exclusively for Esquire by Shaira Luna.

10 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

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B E FO R E W E B EG I N JUNE 2016

THIS MONTH’S

Contributors

CIRILO F. BAUTISTA is a National Artist

SHAIRA LUNA is a professional fashion

for Literature whose poems, essays, and fiction—including The Trilogy of St. Lazarus. and Sunlight on Broken Stones—stand among the most significant contributions to modern Filipino literature. He taught creative writing and literature at St. Louis University, the University of Santo Tomas, and at De La Salle University-Manila, where he is now Professor Emeritus of Literature.

and advertising photographer represented by the international creative talent agency At East | Jed Root. Her works are of a wide and varied range of styles: from cinematic or dreamy to clean or gritty, although always gravitating towards nostalgia and feels from the past. She lives in Manila with nine cats and a whole floor of thrifted clothes and costumes for her self-styled shoots.

WARREN ESPEJO is a fine arts graduate

CHARLSON ONG is a multi-awarded

who loves fashion and all things weird.

Deeply influenced by surreal artists like René Magritte, Paul Delvaux and Salvador Dali, Warren’s artworks reflect his admiration of their works. He is currently the art director of online lifestyle site, Spot.ph, and also regularly contributes in other magazines. In his free time, he likes customizing his own sneakers and jackets.

fictionist who has received, among others: a Palanca award for his short story, The Trouble in Beijing; a second-place Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for his novel, An Embarrassment of Riches; and several National Book Awards for his works across the years. He currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of The Philippines’ Department of English and Comparative Literature.

14 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

ARTU NEPOMUCENO first attempted to become a chef, before realizing that he had no stomach for butchery. He graduated with a major in photography from the College of St. Benilde. Today, his works appear in several local magazines and publications. With the help of his mom, he put up a small ice cream sandwich shop called Louie-Luis—the profits of which go back to his craft.

Man at His Best

N I G E L PA R RY

JUNE 2016

i n s i de mah b Bill Murray..........17

Sandwiches................30

Cocktails.........34

Huawei P9...............38

MaHB

ESQ&A / THE EXIT INTERVIEW

Bill Murray THE ACTOR AND ICON ON ADELE, TRUMP, CLOONEY, HIMSELF, WORKING AND NOT WORKING, WORRYING AND NOT WORRYING. ALSO: A SMALL WAGER.

I N T E RV I E W E D BY DAV I D G R A N G E R A N D S C OT T R A A B P H OTO G R A P H S BY N I G E L PA R RY

Wednesday, March 9, 11:07 a.m. JFK airport. David Granger and Scott Raab pick up Bill Murray in Granger’s car. They are heading to the East Side of Manhattan, where Murray is staying.

I didn’t mean to deny you guys a ride down to Charleston. You can come down as soon as this Big East thing is over. We’ve got to have priorities here.

SCOTT RAAB: Seeing your boy coach must be a lot of fun. [Murray’s son Luke is an assistant coach at Xavier.]

BM: Just watching him in the time-outs is so much fun. He always had a function during the time-outs in his previous coaching. And this year I was like, “Luke, you don’t have a job during the time-outs.” He said, “I know.

I’ve gotta figure this out.”

DAVID GRANGER: So he just tries to get busy somehow?

BM: Everyone has something they do.

There’s actually a guy in charge of handing the clipboard to the coach, and there’s a guy in charge of handing the clipboard to the guy who hands the clipboard to the coach.

SR: If you had the choice between a Xavier run to the national championship and the Cubs finally winning the World Series again—I hate to even ask—but if you had to pick one . . .

BM: Well, I have several sons, but I only have one ball club.

SR: I hope you get them both.

BM: It’s got to happen.

SR: [The Cubs] are positioned much better than they’ve been for a long time.

BM: Let’s not do the picture thing today.

DG: Are you going to have time any other day while you’re in town?

BM: I’ll make time.

DG: Do you want us to get you in a suit?

BM: What do you got? I saw the picture of George [Clooney] you texted me.

BILL MURRAY:

18 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

DG: He was wearing his own suit.

George would. He has nice clothes. [To Granger] So how much more time you got with this company?

DG: I’m closing this last issue. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. [Murray slow-claps.]

SR: Dave’s last show.

BM: Are you going to have a party?

DG: If you’re still here on Monday, there’s a little cocktail party.

BM: Seems sort of low-key, given the enormity of the moment.

DG: It’ll be nice.

BM: I’m sure it will be an experience unlike any other.

DG: I invited the people that I feel indebted to.

BM: Then I don’t know why you’re inviting me.

DG: Shit, I wanted to go right there. [The entrance to the Midtown Tunnel is blocked by orange cones.]

BM: You can still do it.

DG: I can’t.

BM: Yes, you can.

DG: The cops will come get me.

BM: Do it right there. I’ll give you a buck if they come get you. You’d be arrested. I’d have to take pictures with the cops. Okay, Rabbi, get it done. Get ’er done. There you go.

DG: I’ve been hassled by tunnel cops too many times.

SR: Tunnel cops, man. They’re like carnies.

BM: The guy’s a fucking tunnel cop.

SR: Bitter.

BM: Oh, Jesus. You did it.

SR: You did good. Tunnel cop barely looked up.

DG: We just barely slid by.

BM: Richard Belzer used to call everybody Rabbi. I thought, someone’s going to go nuts. But he got away with it every single time. . . . So there’s like a little steakhouse, Albanian, back over that way.

DG: I don’t know it.

BM: I think you just walk out at Park Avenue and make a left onto one of those BM:

streets there. It’s sort of underneath stuff.

[About a pedestrian on the sidewalk] That is a style. See, why isn’t someone doing that?

DG: Someone is.

BM: The bomber jacket with the fleece and the leather off the hip? I swear to God, if Armani saw that, he’d take a picture of it and he would have it.

DG: Scott, you have the tape recorder on, right?

SR: I always have the tape recorder on.

BM: My friend worked for Armani, and she used to get a lot of her clothes at the Hasidic clothing store. She had a great hat from the Hasidic clothing store. And she said she walked into work one morning and he looked at her and said, “Let me take a picture of that.” Four months later, it was selling for $650, $700.

DG: He wrote me a nice note.

BM: Giorgio?

DG: Yeah.

SR: That’s nice.

DG: I’ve had a couple nice notes.

SR: The end of an era.

BM: Now are you going to be able to play any more tennis?

DG: The day after I leave, I’m flying to Palm Springs to play in a tennis tournament.

I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do after that.

BM: I got a little place out there in California that’s very lovely, if you want to go.

SR: You could stop at [Mike] Sager’s in La Jolla. I stopped by when I was out there for Charlize Theron.

BM: So it really is Charlize “Tha-ron,” or is that just lately?

SR: “Teh-ran.” Like a hard T: “Teh-ran.”

BM: Why doesn’t she tell you? They introduce her as “Tha-ron” on [the Oscars].

Why the hell wouldn’t she say, “No, it’s ‘Tehran’ ”? So let’s go to Benjamin Steak House on Forty-first.

SR: Sounds perfect.

MaHB

ESQ&A / THE EXIT INTERVIEW

[At the restaurant] DG: Are you slender? What have you been doin’?

BM: Bulimia.

DG: Really?

BM: No, I’ve been working hard for a while.

[The waiter appears and hands out a wine list.] Are you runnin’ up numbers your last week? What’s the story?

DG: Well, I’d say it’s unlikely that they’re gonna reject any expense accounts.

SR: That’s good to hear.

BM: Should we think large format?

DG: Whatever you like . . . So what’s the regimen?

BM: [In Charleston] there’s this trainer girl who opened her own gym down there. She walked up to me in a wine bar and said, “I’m a trainer. Have you ever thought of, like, working out?” So we’re friends now. [To waiter] Good to see you, man.

WAITER: Welcome back.

BM: Hey, do you remember which bottle of wine I got last time? I looked for quite a while, and I think it was a red from South America.

WAITER: Catena Alta?

BM: Catena Alta. That wasn’t so hard. I just needed your help. [To Granger and Raab] So I was on a layover in Atlanta, and I had a glass of wine at 8:15 in the morning. And I say to the guy from the sky lounge, “Are there other people in here drinking at eight o’clock in the morning?” He said, “There are people that come here that actually buy a plane ticket to go to the airport because they can enter the lounge at any hour and drink, because it’s a private club.” And if you gotta have a drink. . .

DG: I was in that very lounge flying to Knoxville, Tennessee, and it was eight o’clock in the morning and there were so many people drinking.

BM: Was it a Sunday?

DG: It was Thanksgiving morning.

SR: I’m rereading Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72, and he talks about being able to drink in these private clubs that are airport lounges.

BM: That’s his best book.

DG: This Republican convention could be interesting. I mean, if nobody has the delegates.

BM: It’s historic.

DG: The thing that’s crazy about Trump is he is fomenting violence. In addition to Secret Service, he’s got his bouncers basically roughing people up.

BM: Trump was at the Adele concert. Were you at the Adele concert?

DG: No. BM: She’s really funny. She sings these songs and people are just bathing themselves in tears. They’re just crying and weeping over

20 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

the way she sings the songs. And then she goes [impersonating Adele], “So glad that you’re still here. I mean, I had the shits last night, and it was like all over my sheets, all over me panties and me jammies.” It’s like, “What?” This is the way she talks in between songs. People are just gobsmacked by it, because you don’t see it coming. And then she goes [impersonating Adele], “Oh, here’s a song. I hope I don’t fuck this up ’cause of my drinking.” And then she goes back to singing, and you’re completely spellbound.

SR: You’re a fan.

BM: I became a

fan when I was driving my sons to school. I had Adele on, and I look in the rearview mirror and all three of my sons are in the back singing. And I’m thinking, What the hell touched these guys? So I started singing it myself after I dropped them off.

[Singing] “You’re gonna wish you / Never had met me / Tears are gonna fall / Rolling in the deep. . . .” Anyway, there Trump is at the Adele concert, rolling in the deep with the guys muscling him down the hall. And I go, “Hey,

MaHB

ESQ&A / THE EXIT INTERVIEW

how ya doin’?” He says, “When this is all over, we’re gonna get together and we’re gonna play some golf.” “When this is all over.”

DG: You should play with him for money, ’cause the guy can’t putt at all.

BM: Oh, really?

DG: He’s got this weird hitch in his putting stroke. He takes the club back, it lifts up, and he tops every putt. But everybody he plays with is like, “Oh, that’s good, Donald. That’s good, Donald.” That’s why he has a two handicap.

SR: So in the magazine we’re gonna call this an “exit interview.”

DG: Scott’s done 50 of these interviews.

SR: I think we should talk about unemployment.

[To Murray] You’ve always had positive things to say about that subject, it seems.

DG: I know you’ve been willingly unemployed, but have you ever been forcibly unemployed?

BM: I was let go at the Treasure Island grocery store in Wilmette, Illinois. I must have been 19. One of the managers said, “What did you say to that lady?” I said, “I have no idea—what did I say?” He said, “I’m not even gonna say it.” I know I didn’t say anything intentionally strange, but I

BM: It’s okay.

DG: I wasn’t sure

that you were getting off that plane today, you know?

SR: David’s a worrier.

DG: You’re the worrier.

BM: People say to me, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”

I’ll say, “I’m not a worrier.” I started saying it a few years ago, and it makes me feel good.

I’ve sort of hypnotized myself to not really worry so much. Do I sound worried?

SR: You do not.

DG: You don’t.

BM: I think it’s a good health tip to say “I’m not a worrier.”

DG: Are you gonna eat anything? I’m starving.

BM: You wanna go in on the steak for three?

SR: Yeah.

DG: Oh, that’d be awesome.

BM: Creamless spinach? Have you ever seen that on a menu before?

DG: I’m having a hard time understanding what that means.

SR: Creamed spinach?

BM: Creamless.

DG: Creamless?

BM: Creamless.

I scrub my teeth every day. I don’t necessarily go to sleep every day.

I don’t necessarily change my clothes every day. I don’t necessarily eat.

I’ve really lived it on the fly. could’ve said something like “Well, the sausage is, you know, special today” or something like that.

SR: She misinterpreted an innocent comment about sausage quality.

BM: So I was let go, and that was too bad, because they liked me there. I was originally hired to cook chestnuts. They decided they’d like to have roasting chestnuts outside to make people feel good on the way in. People just like seeing ’em. No one wants roasted chestnuts. I still don’t know how to roast a chestnut.

SR: You never got fired from a film?

BM: I don’t think I ever got fired.

DG: Ever had a dry period? A fallow period?

BM: I’ve retired a couple times. I just say, “I’m retired.” It keeps a certain kind of person away from you—the kind of person that you really don’t want around. The people who are really interested in you will find you eventually.

SR: That’s always been your theory: that people will find you.

BM: If someone really wants you, they find you.

DG: It’s hard to find you.

22 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

[Murray orders a steak for three—rare, because it comes on a steel plate and he figures it will keep cooking—and some hashbrowns.]

DG: When I was talking to George, I said, “When you think of Bill Murray, is there a particular moment that you think of?” You ever have any moment with George that crystallizes him?

BM: Well— [Pauses] DG: That’s a far-off look.

BM: No, I’m trying to be— SR: Circumspect?

BM: Exactly. Discreet wasn’t the right word—circumspect is what I was looking for. He asked me to work on Monuments Men, and it was really life-changing for me. At the time, I was in a very difficult situation where I was sharing the custody of my children. Two weeks on and two weeks off. And he allowed me to work two weeks on and two weeks off. They flew me back home and back to Germany every two weeks.

DG: Wow. BM: That’s

who that guy is. He really thinks about other people. He really came up slow. And he was a driver for his aunt Rosemary, who was one of the biggest stars in the world, and also possibly one of the most difficult people to be with in the world. And yet he was her driver. So you probably can’t do anything right when you’re the nephew of that person. It was like my caddying experience, where you kind of go, “Well, this is definitely how I don’t want to treat people. This is not what I wanna do.” I go and visit George at his house and you do nothing but laugh.

It’s just laughs all day long. It’s really good for your soul—you just laugh so much.

SR: Are you gonna write a memoir?

BM: I wrote a book once.

SR: Cinderella Story. I’ve read it.

DG: You’ve already written your memoir.

What else is there to say?

BM: I recall reading one of those books that David Niven wrote at a time when people were writing those tell-alls. And I thought, Holy cow. This guy didn’t stab anybody. Never. He just told great stories about all these people.

SR: [To Granger] Are you thinking of writing at some point?

DG: I don’t think I’m a writer.

BM: You write something every month.

DG: Writing’s really hard. Whenever I’ve written, the best part is being done.

BM: I think if you just start telling stories. . . .

DG: That’s exactly what [Esquire writer at large] Cal Fussman said to me: Tell a story a day. I just reread a story that I wrote about Andre Agassi in 1996 for GQ magazine. It was really funny.

BM: So what you’re saying is you had it and you lost it.

SR: He’s just got a hitch. He’ll work it out. . . . I remember interviewing you for Broken Flowers. I said, “Oh, this must be hard,” and you said, “I work the same hard on all of them.”

DG: That’s a great line.

SR: You show up, put in some time, and you do your best work.

BM: I read something Hunter Thompson wrote in 1958 from an apartment on Perry Street. He said, “Figure out what your talent is, what your desire is, and figure out a goal that’s right in the center of that.”

The desire thing is huge.

DG: How does it feel being the only thing that people agree on in the United States of America, you know?

BM: Imagine looking at it from the inside out.

SR: When I visited you in Charleston, a stranger came up and knocked on your

MaHB

ESQ&A / THE EXIT INTERVIEW

door. He was looking for you. And you stayed in the back and I told the guy, “Yeah, you got the wrong house.”

DG: You’re on bumper stickers. There’s nobody else that that’s happening to.

BM: What am I supposed to make of that?

And it doesn’t necessarily change the way the jobs go or anything. Like, I made that last movie and I’m thinking to myself, Well, maybe all these people who’ve bought bumper stickers and T-shirts will show up. Not really. It doesn’t cross over.

Rock the Kasbah. I worked as hard as I could—I loved it. But that was the worst movie I’ve ever had, ever.

DG: In terms of?

BM: In terms of everything.

SR: It proves the absurdity of something.

DG: But you represent something to people.

SR: Beyond the work.

DG: I think part of it is that your passage through life seems so graceful. And I think people respond to that grace. Most people think life is hard. You make it look easy.

SR: After I interviewed Bob Odenkirk, he sent me a clip of you and Charlie Rose where you were talking about being “present.” It just made me think, Hey, there’s a guy being himself and enjoying it in the moment.

BM: We had a really extraordinary discussion. He was asking real questions and I was giving real answers. And I was asking him real questions in return. And it went someplace that wasn’t expected.

It just kept going. He said, “I had no idea who you were.”

SR: There can’t be a great plan involved here.

BM: There’s absolutely no plan.

SR: When you first retired, were you anxious?

BM: No. DG: So what do you do in the morning when you don’t have a job to go to?

BM: I scrub my teeth every day. I don’t necessarily go to sleep every day. I don’t necessarily change my clothes every day. I don’t necessarily exercise. I don’t necessarily eat or drink coffee. I’ve really lived it on the fly. But I’m not sure that that’s the way to go. I’m more of a person when I’m working on a movie than at any other time. Because I actually have to really be there. I really gotta show up. Not just physically in a building, although that’s certainly a big part of it. And I know that to do the best work, I’ve gotta be as collected as I can be. Anyone can be silly

24 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

in an elevator, you know? But can you be silly on an elevator seven times from seven different camera angles? [To Granger] So are you having conversations with people about your next step?

DG: Yeah.

BM: What a terrible idea that is.

DG: Really? Don’t talk?

BM: I mean, don’t just sit there on mute but say, “I’m taking some time.” You have the freedom to take the time to let all those ordinary patterns break down.

Forget all the ways you did things. Get into the ten-ayem-beer mode and let your own self appear. If you’re answering the call of someone else—someone other than yourself—you might be missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

DG: That’s solid.

SR: It’s really good advice.

BM: If you want, I’ll make a small wager with you. What do you got on you?

DG: I’ve got about $500 on me.

SR: Whoa.

BM: Me too.

SR: Why is that?

BM: Because it’s workable.

SR: What is the bet?

BM: I’ll bet you your idea is better than anyone else’s idea.

DG: That’s going to be nebulous when it comes to paying off.

BM: In order for it to work, you have to take a little bit of time. You need a time without meetings, without clouding.

SR: He already won the bet, by the way.

DG: So the bet’s who can make it through the summer?

BM: We both have to take no work from anyone for a period of three months, not even talk to anyone until the end of the summer. And then at the end of the summer, if neither of us has an idea that’s good enough to do—our own self-generated one—then we’ll take the first piece-of-shit job that comes. And the guy who takes the first piece-of-shit job has to pay the other guy the 500 bucks.

SR: That’s a great bet.

BM: That’s a great bet, and I get the summer off again.

DG: You guys want any coffee?

WAITER: Should I bring some port?

SR: It’s up to the grown-ups.

DG: You want port?

BM: I’ll only have one if you guys have one.

DG: We can try it.

BM: We’d better try it in that case. . . . If you want to go to my place in Pauma Valley [California], it’s a great writing refuge if you’ve got to get away. Not that you need a refuge.

DG: Avocado country.

BM: There’s

oranges, too. And tangelos. And fresh chicken eggs.

SR: You’ve got chickens?

BM: Lots and lots of chickens. We just keep getting more and more chickens. I know a man out there who keeps chickens, and he’s got too many roosters, and the roosters are wearing out the hens. So he does this thing called a rooster drop, where you basically put a few roosters in the back of the car and then you drop them. He’s been dropping them in the park right next to the mayor’s office.

DG: Should we keep this off the record?

BM: No, the mayor knows. . . . Anyway, I may need to do a rooster drop. There’s a rooster drop a-coming, because there’s a level of noise that the neighbors can’t take when there’s six roosters. [To Granger and Raab] So what else do we need?

SR: A photograph.

DG: Friday morning?

BM: Friday morning.

DG: Where would you like it to be done?

BM: What’d you do with George?

DG: We shot at his house.

BM: What’s the look of the picture?

DG: We shot George making funny faces mostly. And we had Eddie Van Halen bring over his five-pound Pomeranian.

BM: George is funny.

DG: So Friday—what would be a good time, theoretically?

BM: I feel like you don’t want it to be too early.

DG: Late morning?

BM: At eleven o’clock. I’ll pull myself together.

I’ll get a haircut. I’ve been cutting my own hair lately—an economy move. I cut my hair, and then I stay home for a day or so.

SR: Let it fill out a little bit?

BM: Always.

[On the sidewalk, outside the restaurant] FANS: Hey, Bill Murray, we’re sorry to be annoying fans, but can we get a picture with you?

[Murray poses for a picture.]

DG: All right, so I’ll see you on Friday.

BM: We’ll figure it out.

ANOTHER FAN: It’s very nice to meet you. I love your work.

BM: Nice to meet you, too. [To Granger and Raab] It sounded like she said, “I love you, brother.”

DG: That would be interesting.

BM: I hear it a lot, so it wouldn’t be a surprise.

SR: I love a couple of your brothers.

DG: All right, so I’ll see you on Friday.

BM: We’ll figure it out.

DG: I’ll text you the right location and time and all that. All right?

BM: I’m all right.

DG: So I’ll see you on Friday.

BM: Don’t worry.

THE DOSSIER: B I L L M U R R AY Date of birth: September 21, 1950 Which makes him: 65 Hometown: Wilmette, Illinois Childhood extracurriculars: Boy Scout, altar boy, Little League player, shag boy.

Though he was: Kicked out of the first three.

But not the last: Which he describes as “Some hacker . . . hit golf balls, and you would be the target.”

Siblings: Eight, including three actors and one sister.

By which we mean: A Catholic sister of the Dominican Order.

First starring role: Meatballs, directed by Ivan Reitman.

Who has said: “He’s frustrating to other creative people, and, frankly, unfair, because everything has to go on his clock. But he’s worth it.”

Which explains his onset nickname: “The Murricane” Some of his more farfetched roles: Chicago mob boss, drag queen, bank robber/clown, Garfield the cat, vengeful oceanographer, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Most true to life: Aging movie star in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

During the shooting of which: He carried around the book

Making Out in Japanese to sushi bars and asked chefs questions like “Do you have a curfew?” and “Can we get in the backseat?”

Sample autographs: To a six-year-old: “Sidney, run away from home tonight”; to a young girl: “Looking good, princess. Call me— Rob Lowe”; on a fan’s forehead: “Miley Cyrus.”

Upcoming projects: The Jungle Book, Ghostbusters, an as-yet-untitled animated Wes Anderson project.

Nonacting gigs: Part owner of minor league baseball teams, random surprise presence in strangers’ lives.

Which has led to the Urban Dictionary entry: “Bill Murray Story” Defined as: “When you create an outlandish (yet plausible) story that involved you witnessing Bill Murray doing something totally unusual, often followed by him walking up and whispering, ‘No one will ever believe you.’”

His response to “What is it like being so awesome?”: “It’s kind of a shock to wake up every morning and be bathed in this purple light.”

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POPSICLE TOES C H I L L O U T W I T H T H E FA M I LY U S I N G E N E R G Y- E F F I C I E N T A N D M O S Q U I T O - R E P E L L I N G T E C H N O L O G I E S T H AT PROTECT THEM FROM MOSQUITO-BORNE DISEASES

Take Father’s Day as a time to enjoy down time with the family as summer draws to a close and with school season about to start. Spending time and getting comfortable with the family doesn’t have to come with an astronomical power bill thanks to LG’s deluxe Inverter V air conditioners.

Powered by the Inverter V compressor, these AC models allow for quick and powerful cooling while bringing down consumption up to 69 percent.

Users can enjoy cool comfort without worrying about steep electricity bills.

Inverter V ACs are perfect for indoor use, with its ultra-silent BLDC fan motor and Torque Control that allow precise reduction of noise, vibration, and compression loss. The advanced smart Inverter system automatically adjusts the compressor to maintain the user’s desired temperature with minimal fluctuation. Electrical consumption can also be controlled through a built-in 4-step Watt option. All these features contribute to the energy-efficiency and cost-efficiency of Inverter V ACs. Furthermore, LG Inverter V models come in sleek, Red Dot Award-winning designs that will make them great additions to any modern space.

DISEASE-FREE INTERIORS WITH LG MOSQUITO AWAY TECHNOLOGY Another revolutionary innovation from LG is the Mosquito Away technology built into its residential air conditioning models. After careful testing, UP Los

Baños Crop Protection Cluster Research Professor Dr. Pio A. Javier proved that this line of LG air conditioners repel, with 82.71 percent success rate, the dengue- and Zika virus-spreading mosquito Aedes aegypti.

Aside from keeping spaces diseasefree, LG Mosquito Away ACs also come with a low-voltage starter for increased energy efficiency in lower temperatures and a jet cooling feature that can quickly cool a room within a couple of minutes.

CHEERS TO THE COOL DADS Provide comfort and protection for your family with the LG Inverter V series air conditioners. LG’s Mosquito Away technology keeps mosquitoes and the potential disease they bring with them at bay. It also operates efficiently, quietly, and cleanly. Keep cool and healthy while also saving energy.

Like LG Philippines on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at lgphilippines for updates on their latest products and services.

MaHB

GASTRO

Got buns, hun?

THE SANDWICH BECAME A SYMBOL in the feminist struggle when women decried that they could do more in life than just make them. (This stems from the fictional adage of the hungry husband barking to his wife toiling at kitchen, “Woman, make me a sandwich!”)

Their point was, if you’re hungry and you want a sandwich—make it yourself. We agree, but here’s something even easier for you men: we tell you where to get them. This month, we shine the spotlight on two kitchens that take pride in making uncommon sandwiches.

We promise you’ll be dreaming about these buns in your sleep.

BY K A R A O RT I GA

01

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03

02

FOWL BREAD FINALLY—A FIERY CHICKEN SANDWICH THAT HITS ALL THE RIGHT SPOTS. P H OTO G R A P H S BY SA M L I M

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET at Fowl Bread: two butter-infused buns, a steamy slab of chicken breast, Russian dressing, topped with fresh radish, pickles, and crispy chicken skin (spicy, if you prefer).

That last layer of fried chicken skin [ 1 ] aptly called the “chicken cracker” is the ingenious move that makes Fowl Bread’s sandwich crow louder than the rest.

What used to be a retail store on Bonifacio High Street has been transformed into an open kitchen, where they serve a very small menu of garlic egg noodles, potsickers, and the chicken sandwich. But what it lacks in options, Fowl Bread perfects in its flavors: greasy, tasty, hot and spunky—bursting with umami flavor but maintaining its simplicity (it is after all just a really delicious chicken sandwich). The layer of brittle chicken skin is the one that leaves a lasting impression, and makes the sandwich come to life with a little bit of naughtiness. Suddenly it’s sinful, something you want to reward yourself with after a long hard day; something you deserve. You have the option of pairing it with their garlic or salted fries (we recommend the garlic), and easily this meal will make your day.

Don’t be shy to try everything on their menu, too. The garlic egg noodles [ 2 ] are light and simply dressed, but

packed with lots of flavor. They’re perfect with the side order of potstickers.

But to complete your experience at Fowl Bread, everything should be washed down with their delicious homemade slushies. The strawberry hibiscus [ 3 ] is floral and spicy, with an overpowering but surprising taste of fresh ginger. This is exactly the kind of drink you need to balance a meal as buttery as their food. Opt for the pineapple Yakult slushie instead if you’re feeling frisky— it’s creamy, and spiked with rum and orange liqueur.

What we love about Fowl Bread is that everything is locally sourced—from its concept, to the recipes, to its eclectic pop design, and even the beer. Here is one of those places that you can proudly call your our own, with sandwiches you keep coming back to again and again.

Building 3, Bonifacio High Street.

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MaHB

GASTRO

WASH IT DOWN

An overloaded sandwich goes best with an ice-cold fizzy drink. Here are our recommendations.

01

TBGB TURON GINGER BEER Who knew we could dream up such a thing?

This version is sweetened with banana and langka. An odd combination that tastes oh-so-good.

02 03

B A O M A NIL A WE’VE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE MODERN TAKE ON THESE TRADITIONAL CHINESE BUNS. P H OTO G R A P H S BY GA B BY CA N T E RO

THE UNDERRATED, OPEN-FACED BROTHER

of the siopao is the cuapao, filled with pork and veggies and sweet sauce. Unfortunately, this sandwich hasn’t yet gained the popularity of the siopao, which is available in most convenience stores in the Philippines.

But when you find someone who can make an excellent one—you kind of keep them close to your heart (like my grandmother’s 70-year-old neighbor, auntie Biachi).

For Sherry Yap, founder of Bao MNL, working with this sandwich wasn’t exactly top of mind. “I actually don’t enjoy eating the traditional cuapao because I feel like it doesn’t have any texture, and it all tastes the same.”

But when she was looking for a creative outlet for her cooking, she wasn’t looking for something easy. “That’s

32 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

where the baos of Bao MNL take their cue from. I decided to focus on texture, diversity, freshness, flavor, as well as its adaptability to the modern society.”

And her baos answer all of your cuapao dreams. Each comes to life reinvented with its own personality. Like the Ebi + Kani Bao [ 1 ] , for example—stuffed with a tempura shrimp and kani, topped with a bed of cabbage slaw in mango dressing, nori, corn, and slathered with wasabi mayo. Tempura in a sandwich? Brilliant.

And that wasabi mayo is ridiculously delicious. Then there’s Sherry’s take on the traditional pork bun, the Bao’s On Crack [ 2 ] —made with an oven-roasted pork belly cooked for two hours at various temperatures, producing an incredibly tender, flavorful meat with a crunchy skin. This is served with an Asian barbecue sauce and sriracha mayo.

It doesn’t stop with the savory too. Sherry offers as well a dessert bao [ 3 ] : Kit Kat Green Tea gelato scooped onto two deep-fried mantou buns with a special black sesame glaze. It’s a literal ice cream sandwich best devoured on a balmy day.

With Bao MNL, different and exciting are the key to its flavors, and you appreciate that so much thought and detail has gone into making a sandwich. These cuapaos are so good, that a sadness starts to fill you when you realize you’re nearing your last bite. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a keeper.

Contact baobun.mnl@gmail.com for orders.

MAELOC APPLE CIDER Why isn’t cider a thing yet in Manila?

With 5% alcohol content, this crisp apple cider is a good replacement for beer.

STANFORD & SHAW GINGER ALE As opposed to ginger beer, ginger ales are infused sodas, making them lighter and subtler in spice, but still very refreshing. This local brand is a favorite.

COO AVIATION A part of EDSA BDG’s craft soda line, the COO Aviation is not overwhelmingly saccharine, with an interesting floral note from violet blossoms.

MaHB

DRINKING

YOUR DAUGHTER (OR SON) GETS A BOYFRIEND

Uncomfortable about a potential other and not sure how to approach the boyfriend? Make an old fashioned, because you seem to be a little bit so yourself.

This whiskey-based cocktail is made with Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique (aged in a wine cask)—so there is a sweet hint of berries in this one. It’s a bittersweet drink to accompany your mood.

2 oz Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique whiskey ¼ oz sugar 2 dashes Bitter Truth chocolate bitters Put all the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, stir about 30-40 times, and then strain onto a rocks glass with a large cube of ice. Garnish with an orange peel.

Drink Up P RO D U C E D BY K A R A O RT I GA P H OTO G R A P H BY GA B BY CA N T E RO

FROM TEACHING YOUR FOUR-YEAR-OLD

how to use the potty, to steering them away from pot and felony—fatherhood is a tricky thing; so we understand that sometimes, all you really need is a good drink. We ask mixologist Lee Watson (ABV, Mandalay) to teach you how to make some cocktails, so that the next time you find yourself caught in any of these situations: whip one up, pause, and shrug, “c’est la vie.” Cheers to you, dad.

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YOU’VE JUST HAD A FIGHT WITH THE WIFE

You had a little rift, and she sends you off to sleep on the couch for the night. Make this cocktail called the last word, a forgotten gin-based classic— coincidentally named after the one thing most women really want in any argument, anyway.

Something to keep in mind. ¾ oz Monkey 47 gin ¾ oz Green Chartreuse ¾ oz Maraschino liqueur ¾ oz lime juice Shake all the ingredients with ice and then strain onto a martini glass. Garnish with a lime peel.

THE TEST IS POSITIVE

Congratulations, you just found out you’re a dad. To celebrate the fertility of your lover’s eggs, have a whiskey sour—shaken with an egg white for a sweet frothy top.

In this version, Lee uses Octomore—a heavily peated whiskey with a hard-to-quaff smokiness, but a mellow drink when balanced with the sweetness of lime and egg white.

1½ oz Octomore Scottish Barley ¾ oz simple syrup ¾ fresh lime juice 1 egg white Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain, and then repeat the shake without the ice.

Pour onto a rocks glass and garnish with a lemon peel.

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MaHB

MUSIC

Dear Kid DIEGO MAPA, FRONTMAN OF THE DANCE-PUNK BAND PEDICAB, SCHOOLS HIS CHILDREN ON MUSIC. I AM A FATHER OF TWO. Vito is 10 years old, and my daughter Estella just turned eight. They are starting to form their own preferences for things like pop culture, and they’re vocal about it too. “Dad, check this out!” Or, “Look at this!”

Vito loves cartoons. He doesn’t fancy the Lord Of The Rings trilogy

by Peter Jackson, but he does adore its Lego version. He enjoys the original Transformers movie, the song “Touch” by Stan Bush (“You got the touch… You got the power!”) And he’ll enthusiastically dance to the opening credits of the anime Yokai. (To readers with no kids: be glad you don’t have to know what these things are yet.)

Estella doesn’t sleep because of gamer Dan Middleton’s YouTube channel. She loves the movie School Of Rock, where she (thankfully) discovered music like Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water”, AC/DC’s “Back In Black”, and Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” She had a phase where she only watched Michael Jackson videos for a month.

When I hear them mention things that I personally enjoy—like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Daft Punk—I try to latch on to these as tools to steer their taste preference towards the “proper direction.” It’s easy to get into pop music nowadays. But with the classics, sometimes you have to hand them down.

Here are some tracks I hope would cause a eureka-moment with them too, as they did to me.

Yellow Submarine The Beatles

Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana

Housequake Prince

I got into the Beatles when I was the same age as my kids. It was the gateway to catchy melodies, the verse-chorus-verse structure, and sterling arrangements.

Estella dear, now that you know AC/DC and Black Sabbath, I think you’re ready for Nirvana.

I performed this song before, solo miming on the microphone at Parents’ Day in grade school. The sound system at the school was so bad at that time that nobody noticed it was full of cuss words. At least kids got to listen to Prince (R.I.P.).

Beat It Michael Jackson

That track “Treasure” by Bruno Mars? I’m pretty sure he ripped it off from this.

Baby I’m Yours Breakbot Feat. Irfane

You can’t go wrong with Michael.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Daft Punk

ABC The Jacksons

I Got You (I Feel Good) James Brown

I can imagine this song being enjoyed by all ages at children’s parties. It’s ultra-appealing.

For your children’s funky future, please feed them nutrients. James Brown is good for their health.

Dear Vito, “One More Time” is not the only song of Daft Punk. Here’s another one just as popular, that was also sampled by Kanye West. You will know about him when you are much older.

My Beau Daedelus Feat. Ericka Rose and Paper Boy So What Cha Want Beastie Boys

There are cartoon themes that sound similar to the Beastie Boys’ beats and rhyming—but, children, this is the real deal.

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Boys Don’t Cry The Cure

This song feels like listening to Tim Burton’s movie Nightmare Before Christmas, but with drums.

This track sampled the ´90s dance hit “My Boo” By the Ghost Town DJs. The original track is currently going viral on the web, accompanying those running man challenge videos. The step we see on the latter looks like the original running man ´90s dance step, but it is not.

MaHB

SEX

Flirty at Forty THE PALTRY DATING PROSPECTS OF A MIDDLE-AGED SINGLE DAD WITH A VIC SOTTO COMPLEX.

BY E R I C R A M OS A RT BY M A I N E M A N A L A N SA N

LIFE DID BEGIN FOR ME AT 40. Just when I had resigned myself to a life of bachelorhood in my middle age, it happened one fine Sunday morning almost six years ago, when Brandon landed in my arms—an eight-pound ball of wonder that glowed with his mother’s white Caucasian skin and my big fat Filipino nose.

Thankfully, his nostrils would streamline a month later, but in that moment when I cradled him in my arms for the first time and sniffed his sweet baby scent, I realized all the clichés I had heard, read, and seen in movies about the miracle of life were true. Nothing else mattered anymore but this boy’s bond with me. He was my flesh and blood. He was glorious and he was beautiful. And he was mine.

Four years later, he was all mine. My girlfriend had proved too young to nest and had flown the coop. I was happy to get sole custody, conceding only a monthly weekend stay for Brandon in her family’s home in Pampanga.

Save for a couple of violent tantrums, my son recovered fast from the trauma of his parents’ separation, and never looked back.

Possessing less powers of recuperation, I decided we needed a change of scenery.

So I moved us out of our small condo in Mandaluyong and into a three-bedroom house in a very tranquil hillside village in Marikina. The village had a decent preschool that was a very short walking distance for my son and his yaya.

“Wow, you’re so handsome!” Teacher T. gushed as I handed Brandon over to her on his first day in his new school. It was obviously meant for my boy, but I couldn’t resist privately claiming the compliment for myself.

Teacher T. was very easy on the eyes herself. She was a fresh college graduate teaching her first kindergarten class. Way too young for me. But then again, I thought, wasn’t Brandon’s mom 20 years my junior when she got pregnant? Also, there was P., a 21-year-old events and car show model I started dating shortly after I split with Brandon’s mom.

So shoot me. My taste for significantly younger, nubile females started in my early

30s while I held my dream job as editor-inchief of FHM for four years. I guess it stuck with me long after I had left FHM and worked for other men’s magazines. I met Brandon’s mom when she modeled for Maxim. So there.

P. was definitely FHM material, a dead ringer for Rosamund Pike but, of course, younger. On our first date I realized she lived closer to Tagaytay, where I had taken her, than to Marikina. This geographical challenge and the fact that she had a boyfriend (who was her age and who was loyal and dependable) didn’t stop us from partaking in a weekly conspiracy to scratch a mutual itch. She didn’t call me a dirty old man, just her dirty little secret.

I was cool with it. I thought I was getting all the love and affection I needed from my son. P. addressed my basic biological needs. I knew fully well that she was not a keeper, but I still made the mistake of introducing her to Brandon. Strangely, he called her Teacher P. instead of Tita P. He must have conflated her with his kindergarten teacher, who did inspire me to visit his school quite often.

Later, I asked him who he liked better, and it was a no contest in favor of the real educator.

His yaya, who always stayed with other yayas at the school’s waiting area, cast the same no-brainer vote. She dutifully reported to me every time Teacher T. expressed inordinate interest in Brandon’s daddy during their frequent conversations.

I was very interested in Teacher T. myself.

I was prepared to forget about P. if she would have me. I soon learned she was still hurting after being dumped by her first boyfriend for another girl. She was vulnerable, yes, but she also quickly made it known she was a pious lady who expected old-school courtship. Alas, she deserved a suitor with purer intentions.

Not a man who was old enough to be her father, no matter how well-mannered and youthfullooking. Definitely not someone whose Instagram ID says “retired pornographer.”

I continued seeing P. for another year, even though I knew she was all wrong for me. And then one night, it dawned on me that Brandon had told me for the fifth or sixth time that he wanted a baby sister. So I parted with P. and began an earnest search for a more suitable mate. Obviously, I needed to date someone with whom I could have a connection that was more than skin-deep. Preferably older than Pauleen Luna, but hopefully still able to bear me a child.

Meanwhile, my son and I compromised.

I agreed to finally get him a puppy. A shih tzu or a chow chow would challenge his EQ more than his army of toy robots and Lego figurines ever could. But then again, considering my checkered dating history, maybe I need an EQ challenge, too.

So two puppies? Hmm…that doesn’t sound right.

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MaHB

TECH

Photo Perfect THE HUAWEI P9 IS OUT TO PROVE THAT THEY ARE THE NEXT STEP IN SMARTPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY.

BY PATRICIA BARCELON I HATE TAKING PICTURES. In the days of yore, when film was still a necessity, I prefered to borrow negatives from friends and reprint my own batch of vacation photos from them. My Instagram account has been gathering virtual dust from years of neglect. I don’t need to know what you had for brunch at some hashtag-worthy restaurant, how you woke up “looking like this,” or how adorable your dog looks sleeping in your bed. (Okay, maybe the last one. I’m a sucker for pet pictures.)

So when Huawei invited me to Bali for the unveiling of their new phone, I wasn’t really that psyched to go. What I didn’t count on was actually being impressed with their new P9.

Let’s start with the specs: the P9 is a 5.2-inch phone, with Huawei’s own Kirin 955, octa-core processor, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of storage (expandable via microSD memory card), and a 3,000 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery. The user interphase is as iOS as it gets, which is a plus for someone like me who has never used an Android phone, but Android users have complained about the P9’s clunky Android skin. One thing I’m definitely not crazy about is that the phone is loaded with a ton of bloatware, which would be fine if they could be removed once the unit is bought, but many are redundant, built-in programs that just take up precious memory.

The uniform metal body (in a sleek sandblasted aluminum finish) and curved glass around the front make the aesthetics of the P9 stand up quite well against the posher iPhones, LGs, and Samsungs. It is light without feeling flimsy, fancy without being flashy. But let’s talk about the phone’s showpiece: two camera lenses (one for colored shots, the other for black and white) that were co-engineered by Leica. Why are two cameras better than one, you ask? Due to the average size of a smartphone, the large sensors used in a SLR cannot be accomodated, so both cameras of the P9 work in parallel to capture a photo, combining

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the image sharpness, light, field depth, and accuracy provided by the monochromatic sensor. The RGB sensor on the other hand, captures colors, producing better photos than a regular RGB sensor would have given us. Both cameras of the P9 are standard 12-megapixel cameras and have an aperture of f/2.2.

The built-in photography app of the P9 is so powerful, it was confusing, though I’m pretty sure it was confusing only to someone like me. Everyone else in the Bali launch were gleefully playing with their filters and different photo modes, such as: night, slow-mo, beauty, and light painting, and includes three “films” that simulate the same results you get from a real Leica camera. Even my half-hearted attempts to capture a shot or two during the event looked pretty damn Instagramworthy with a few adjustments. For the photography buffs, switching to Professional Mode means you can set ISO, white balance, shutter speed and other settings as you like. The camera also supports highquality video, but its 1080p capabilities are still a step behind most other brands’ 4K quality. But it’s a smartphone, folks, not a tablet, not a laptop. Do you really need 4K quality on a screen that fits in your palm?

The standard night mode isn’t all that great—but try the same shot using the Pro mode and you can really lighten up dark scenes—provided that whatever you are capturing are static images. Huawei could have done a little bit more with their optical image stabilization specs, so party shots of you and your friends dancing the night away aren’t really feasible on this phone.

Huawei, over the last two years however, has made it clear that it is intent on positioning its phones as a heavyweight contender in the slug-fest that is the smartphone market. They want us to make them, as the P9 hashtag boasts, “The New Choice.” It wouldn’t be very surprising if in a few short years, Huawei simply becomes The Choice.

MaHB

PROFILE

Ricky Gervais THE COMEDIAN REQUESTED A COPY OF THIS PROFILE IN CASE HE HAD ANY NOTES. TURNS OUT HE DID.

BY M AT T G O U L E T RICKY GERVAIS NEEDS A DRINK AND A WEE.

It’s late afternoon on a Friday in London, and he’s just connected over Skype when he steps away from the computer to take care of the latter. With him outside the frame, the room is unobscured: the cream-colored walls, a gold-framed mirror hanging in the study of his spacious home, and is that white marble? This Trump-Tower-done-tastefully decor was furnished by a man who has made a self-proclaimed “cottage industry” out of finding stories and comedy in the most unglamorous people and environments.

It’s weird to see someone who openly eschews personal vanity (Gervais regularly publishes “horrendous” double-chinned photos of himself in the tub on social media) in this luxe home in tony Hampstead, with an apartment waiting for him on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He can hardly believe it himself. “[The neighborhood] was sort of rarefied, quite eccentric old money—until I came along. That was when

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the Beverly Hillbillies arrived. Curtains were twitching. They thought I was a lottery winner.

I’ve moved up a few social classes, I think.”

Gervais gets up again to let Ollie, a beloved Siamese cat that he tweets photos of with almost daily regularity, out of the room, and explains his success.

“I didn’t pander. I didn’t aim for globality. Not right—I want to be famous and make shows everywhere.”

Gervais was 40 when The Office premiered on the BBC. He’s 54 now and continuing to churn out movies and TV series on which he maintains full creative oversight—writing, producing, directing, and starring in them. His latest is Special Correspondents, premiering on Netflix on April 29, which follows a radio correspondent and an audio engineer as they fake an Ecuadorean war from an apartment in Queens for fame and glory.

“I’m not good working for anyone else,” he says.

“I’m unemployable. When I had a real job, I was thinking, God, I wouldn’t do it like that. Just let me do it.”

Some of Gervais’s projects have been hits (The Office, Extras) and others have landed flat or been met with confusion (Derek, Ghost Town). But he loves all of them because they’re wholly his creations. “I think people think I’m arrogant, but I’m saying, ‘No, you might be able to do it better than me, but I don’t care.’ ” And even when he’s doing a gig, he has to make it his own. “I’ll get an advert, a huge campaign offer, and if they don’t let me rewrite it or do my own thing, I say no. It’s odd. Even if it’s a ridiculous payday, I still want it to be my work.

Because it’s a bit of my DNA there.”

It’s cocktail hour, and Gervais’s longtime girlfriend, Jane Fallon, hands him a glass of wine outside the frame. “It’s prosecco. It could be champagne, but what am I, made of money?”

That’s when I feel the disconnect between Gervais the guy talking to me from his house with a glass of bubbly and Gervais the guy emceeing the Golden Globes with a pint. When it comes to hosting, he says, “I’m the fat guy at home on the couch in his pants, having a go at Jennifer Lawrence for having $52 million, then whining.”

But the couch he’s sitting on is really nice, and he’s actually at the awards show in a tux. Still, his vaunted place in the Hollywood hierarchy doesn’t seem to faze him. “The Golden Globes might get 200 million people watching it and loads of column inches, like I murdered someone. I treat the Golden Globes like some people treat golf on a Sunday. Come Monday morning, I’m back writing a character for a comedy or a movie. And that’s why I’m not beholden to anyone in the room, because I own my own labor.” He considers what he’s just said and smiles. “I sound like a Marxist.”

He says catching grief for his act can get in the way.

“It’s a double-edged sword. I’ve got this reputation for being a shock jock, so they don’t actually hear the joke,” Gervais says. “They see a swagger and a beer and they think what I’ve said is probably mean.” It also works to his advantage. His onstage edginess, his potential for breaching the taboo, is what gets people in the seats for his personal projects. “If you’re very anodyne, people only have to see you once,” he says. “You don’t want to be the boy band of comedy.

You want to be David Bowie or Radiohead.” The mention of Bowie reminds him of a story about the icon coming up to Gervais after seeing a clip of his aborted ’80s pop music career and saying, “I owe you an apology. It seems I ripped you off.” The two began a friendship that included regular lovingly antagonistic e-mails from Bowie and a guest appearance on Extras during which the singer calls Gervais a “chubby little loser.”

It’s 7:00 p.m. now, and with the light all but gone, Gervais’s immaculate room is no longer visible. In the darkness, his black hair and shirt have rendered him a Cheshire cat, his self-described “manky” teeth the only thing perceptible onscreen as he fills me in on the rules of etiquette for dick pics with fans. “I was in the bathroom [at a boxing match at Madison Square Garden]. I am at the urinal. I am actually urinating. ‘Ricky! Can I have a selfie?’ There’s a selfie out there of me, cock in my hand—luckily, we couldn’t see that—at the urinal. He sees me at the urinal, comes over, puts his arm around me, gets a selfie. I think, This is odd. And I’m not a brave man.

I’m already at a fight. There’s a lot of testosterone.

With my knob in my hand, I’m not about to go, ‘Fuck off, mate.’ ” If it had been a microphone in his hand instead of his knob, he probably would have.

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AGENDA

DADDY’S GRILL So your dad’s a carnivore.

Getting him a premium slab of steak could be the most eloquent way to thank him this time of year, especially if you’re not big on words or scribbling one-liners on greeting cards.

Once that special Sunday comes around, invite him to 22 Prime at Discovery Suites Ortigas. Let him order the 850-gram tomahawk that looks like a caveman’s club, while you could try out their succulent Surf ‘n Turf. And, oh, don’t forget to make reservations. Your dad taught you better than that.

For information, visit www.discoverysuites.com.

HANDS ON

FATHER AND SUN

If dad’s presence was his greatest present, count yourself lucky. Waste no time together and appreciate the good things in life—one of them the Drive de Cartier, which continues the long standing tradition of carrying distinctive shapes.

The only time you want your dad to catch you ogling at something topless is if it’s the new MINI Convertible.

The newest model of this British beauty has come to Philippine shores so you and dad can have more driving fun under the sun.

KEEP IT COOL An overprotective dad would lose it over anything that could harm his brood. But if he had LG’s deluxe Inverter V air conditioners—which repels mosquitoes and saves energy—a cooler head would rule the household.

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06.2016

S T Y L E THE SECRET LIFE OF DAMN FINE WATCHES The timepieces on these pages have no shortage of curb appeal: precious metals, cutting-edge movements, iconic designs.

But a great watch doesn’t always show its true value at first glance, and sometimes the best parts are barely visible at all.

The Upside of the Backside This Omega is called the Dark Side of the Moon for its matte black ceramic case, but the back ofers a view of the bright and beautifully finished coaxial movement, which took nearly 20 years to perfect.

Ceramic Speedmaster chronograph by Omega; omegawatches.com.

TIMELESS ADVICE If your watch doesn’t have a clear sapphire case back like the one shown here, don’t attempt to break in and view the movement without professional help.

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Global Ambitions There’s a lot going on with this dial, but there’s also a lot going on in the 24 diferent time zones where this watch is capable of telling time with a simple adjustment of the bezel. The surprise?

That a bona fide world-timer—powered by an in-house movement from the restless innovators at Vuitton’s La Fabrique du Temps—doesn’t cost twice as much as this one.

Steel Escale Time Zone watch by Louis Vuitton; louisvuitton.com.

Sporty Inf luences The Chopard Mille Miglia GTS automatic is proof that a racinginspired watch doesn’t have to look like the dashboard of a supercar.

And the Bremont Oracle II is unmistakably nautical, without the bulk of a tanker.

TIMELESS ADVICE Get a (mental) leg up on jet lag by setting your watch to the time zone of your final destination before you board a long-haul flight.

Steel Mille Miglia GTS Automatic watch by Chopard; chopard.com.

Titanium Oracle II watch by Bremont; bremont.com.

Looks Smart. Is Smart.

The idea that a smartwatch should resemble a shrunken smartphone is a failure of imagination. The TAG Heuer Connected is powered by Android without sacrificing the aesthetic of the timeless TAG chronographs that men have turned to for decades.

Titanium Connected watch by TAG Heuer; tagheuer.com.

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A Brand-New Shape When it comes to case shape, men aren’t exactly spoiled for choice.

But Cartier has always pushed the envelope—from the square Tank watch in 1917 to the modern, oblong Roadster.

This year, the brand pulled of what seemed geometrically impossible: the Drive de Cartier, with a cushion case that somehow feels masculine.

Rose-gold Drive de Cartier watch by Cartier; cartier.com.

Invisible Engineering It’s nice to be the company that wears the crown—and has the resources to innovate constantly, furiously, quietly. The bezel of this here Rolex is Cerachrom: a scratch-, rust-, and sunproof ceramic that the brand invented because, well, it can do that sort of thing. The matte finish matches what looks like a standardissue rubber strap, but just under that black elastomer skin is a flexible blade that allows for casual commodore vibes with all the structural strength of steel.

TIMELESS ADVICE Never remove a watch in a bathroom: Steam, slick surfaces, and tile floors make for very expensive repairs.

Rose-gold Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master watch by Rolex; rolex.com.

Pilot Watches: Still Flying High Pilots are a big reason watches migrated from our pockets to our wrists—taking your hands of the yoke was not an option before planes flew themselves. Maybe it’s the pilot watch’s historic importance that accounts for its perennial appeal. Patek Philippe turned heads in 2015 when it unveiled the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time in white gold instead of stainless steel. The wire lugs on this Bell & Ross hark back to when pilots retrofitted pocket watches to be worn over their gloves or sleeves. And the Last Flight, from IWC, commemorates the mission from which Antoine de Saint-Exupéry never returned.

White-gold Calatrava Pilot Travel Time watch by Patek Philippe.

Steel WW1-97 Heritage watch by Bell & Ross; bellross.com.

Ceramic Last Flight chronograph by IWC; iwc.com.

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Beautiful, Inside and Out It looks like a blunt instrument, but inside this 47mm beast is a beauty of a movement: the first automatic flyback chronograph caliber developed entirely in-house at Panerai. No one does big watches better.

Steel Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Chrono Flyback watch by Panerai; panerai.com.

TIMELESS ADVICE Water-resistant means exactly that: okay for humidity or light rain. So make sure your watch is waterproof before you take a dive.

Maximal Minimalism That’s a polished-stone dial surrounded by sculpted gold, but the important thing to understand here is that sometimes a total lack of bells and whistles makes the loudest statement of all.

White-gold Black Tie watch by Piaget; piaget.com.

The Return of German Engineering Once upon a time, the small town of Glashütte, Germany, was home to a watch industry that rivaled Geneva’s. But back-to-back world wars—and a long stint behind the Iron Curtain, where luxury was not exactly in demand— took a serious toll. Today, it’s no exaggeration to say that the Germans are back and better than ever, from the collector catnip of A. Lange & Söhne (left) and the welcome revival of Glashütte Original (center) to the auspicious newcomer, Nomos Glashütte (right).

White-gold 1815 watch by A. Lange & Söhne; alange-soehne.com. Steel Senator Observer chronograph by Glashütte Original; glashutte-original. com. Steel Orion Neomatik 1st Edition watch by Nomos Glashütte; nomos-watches.com.

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Colorful Provenance The Big Bang Unico Italia Independent was developed in collaboration with the accessories brand cofounded

by Lapo Elkann, Italy’s rebel style icon. What looks like blue carbon fiber is actually a proprietary material called Texalium, created at a kind of fashion-science think tank and designed to take on the type of eye-popping color you see here.

Carbon-fiber Big Bang Unico Italia Independent chronograph by Hublot; hublot.com.

Clean. Classic. Timeless.

Tifany rarely gets the credit it deserves for an impressive horological past and present; Montblanc is quickly becoming a serious player in the space. Both brands ofer elegant, cleanly designed timepieces that will win instant approval from your watch-nerd friends—as well as anyone with eyes.

Steel Heritage Chronometrie Twincounter Date watch by Montblanc; montblanc.com.

Rose-gold CT60 chronograph

by Tiffany & Co.; tiffany.com.

TIMELESS ADVICE Heavy metal bracelets?

Not designed with warm weather in mind. Swap yours out for breathable leather or shiny shell cordovan.

Material of Hard Knocks The bezel of a watch—the frame that holds the crystal in place—is the part most likely to take a beating, as it’s the first line of defense against tile floors and brick walls. The bezel above is a diferent shade than the bracelet because it’s molded from tungsten carbide, a corrosion-resistant composite that’s five times harder than steel.

Steel Galactic Unitime SleekT watch by Breitling; breitling.com.

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SLIVER At Bulgari, watches shed volume, but never their weight.

B Y C L I F F O R D O L A N D AY

DO YOU LIKE WATCHES that sit on your wrist like a tank that tells time? Turns out you don’t. Men are turning away from the flash of the big and heavy in favor of the sliver-thin and cat-quiet.

The shift in perspective can be attributed to the slow economic environment the world finds itself in. “We have a lot of very rich clients today that do not want to show their watches,” reports Fabrizio Buonamassa, director of the Bulgari Watches Design Center, at an exclusive presentation held at the Bulgari boutique in Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. In consideration of more important needs and, in some places, their very safety, men are opting out of objects that clue you in on how much money they make.

Which brings us to what Buonamassa refers to “a strong trend in tuxedo watches.” Thin is in. Watches that rest on the skin like a stack of coins are wanted.

Timepieces that slip quietly under the cuff of a slim

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dress shirt are preferred. And though you might not be an oil baron, a media mogul, or the average tech millionaire, who needs to shoo away unwanted attention, you’ll still find the new generation of streamlined watches appealing.

Bulgari, the luxury company that creates high jewelry, has successfully made the transition into the world of watchmaking by virtue of its expertise in the manipulation of gemstones and forms. As early as the 1920s, it dabbled in custom-made watches; in the 1940s, it transposed time onto the multi-coiled Serpenti; and in 1975, the jeweler made waves with the arrival of the Bulgari Roma.

The yellow gold digital watch, with a plaited cord strap, had its name curiously engraved on its bezel. In the world of luxury watches, during that innocent time before namedropping, placing the logo so prominently on a watch’s face was unusual. And so it became a hit.

What was intended as a limited run of 100, a special gift for special clients, became so in-demand that it prompted the creation of the Bulgari Bulgari series, which propelled the company into the heights of popularity.

Today, the company possesses a covetable portfolio of luxury watches, from ladies’ timekeepers dripping in colored gemstones (a watch on the sparkling head of a snake never fails to amaze) to an equally strong suite of men’s watches with complications like the tourbillion, perpetual calendar, and moon phase.

“I think that the Octo is our iconic watch. It’s our male pillar,” declares Buonamassa. Following the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, which holds the distinction of having the thinnest tourbillon movement in the world, three slender models have been added to the line: a minute repeater, a skeleton watch, and a black-themed execution.

The design director stresses how Bulgari always diverges from the standard. “We break the rules once again with the thinnest minute repeater in the world,” he says. At only 6.85mm thick, the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater is a marvel of miniaturization, as well as an expression of skill and experience. How in the world were they able to fit everything into this slimmed-down package?

It would be difficult to explain how they did it, and maybe its best to leave the workings of this impossibly thin watch in the realm of the unknown to preserve its magic. Just know that, in order to fit the engine that drives the hands, add the whozits and whatzits required to produce the clear-as-a-bell sound of a repeater, and finally dress everything in that sliver of a case, traditional watchmaking techniques had to be abandoned. “To reach this, the process is totally different. Rather than adding layers, you have to work totally from scratch,” explains Pascal Brandt, communications director of Bulgari Watches.

It took three years to figure out how to fit all the pieces, which included 362 miniaturized components, into a movement and case of infinitesimal proportions. The guiding principle in creating an ultrathin watch is that everything must make sense. “This kind of movement doesn’t have space for decorative elements,” explains Buonamassa. “It’s like a military object or a Formula One car. You need the components to work in a perfect way.”

Of note, everything was produced in-house, from the initial sketches all the way to the final checks, at the Manufacture Bulgari, an integrated watchmaking network spread across four sites in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. “The case comes from our facility in Saignelégier, the movement comes from our facility in Le Sentier, and the dial comes from our facilities in La Chaux-de-Fonds,” says Buonamassa.

The design director adjusts the watch hands to five before 12. “You have to push the button—it’s very well integrated in terms of design.

You push [it], and you can hear the sound,” he says. The minute repeater rings. It’s not a brrriing. It’s more like a ding, the confident tolling of an invisible bell, which is loud enough to attract attention, but not obnoxiously obtrusive as to distract from conversation. We imagine this will be useful in situations where you can’t glance at your wrist to determine the time like during a bad date.

This tuxedo watch is recommended for everyday use, which is another case of breaking the rules. Made of solid titanium, a material that gives the minute repeater lightness (it weighs a comfortable 43 grams) and strength, Bulgari has made a highly wearable grand complication watch. “It’s not something for your safe,” adds Buonamassa. “It’s something for your pleasure.”

For watch aficionados, the idea of wearing a minute repeater, which is usually expensive, produced in limited numbers, and reserved only for special occasions, to something as mundane as your son’s first basketball

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game may be akin to sacrilege. But Bulgari has the license to shake things up. “This is the boldness of the brand,” reiterates Brandt. “Bulgari was not a watchmaker originally. It’s a jeweler, which came into watches... This means, we have a lot of freedom in terms of watch creation.”

Even if they have the ability to create grand complication watches, setting records along the way, Bulgari still finds itself outside the circle of elite Swiss watchmakers.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing because the jeweler is released from the expectation to create only very classic watches. There is a lot of wiggle room to do things another way and, yes, shock (watch out for carbon gold executions in the future).

With their round dials, thin bezels, and white faces, tuxedo or formal watches tend to look the same. If you don’t take time to read the logo, you might make the awkward mistake of identifying a watch as part of another house.

But you’ll never mistake the eight-sided Octo for something else. Its play on shape and volume— an octagon enclosed by a circle that is placed atop

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another octagon—gives it distinct character among ultra-thin, formal watches. “Our direction in these dress watches [is to] break the rules with an iconic design,” adds Buonamassa.

For the Octo Finissimo Skeleton, that means applying a see-through execution onto the very thin form. Bulgari describes this as a “watch clothed in a black, silk negligee,” and when you see the light shine through its lace-like gears, you believe the crazy description.

The Octo Finnisimo Ultranero offers something even more straightforward with its focus on the different combinations of black and gold. The black here is endowed with Bulgari’s diamond-like carbon coating, which gives Ultranero watches an architectural feel and even the look of a stealth fighter jet.

In other words, these watches appear discreet but expensive, or expensive but discreet, which is just perfect for the needs of the wealthy but anxious.

Greenbelt 4.

THROWDOWN Playing with the All Blacks Bulgari and rugby seem strange bedfellows, but the maker of luxury watches and the rough-and-tumble sport have more in common than you think. “Rugby is a clean sport, a pure sport, so you can find a pure value,” says Bulgari design director Fabrizio Buonamassa.

We’re pretty sure the chief designer is referring to the values that Bulgari and the New Zealand All Blacks share. The watchmaker and the number one rugby team in the world have been in partnership for the past four years to celebrate their common interests: high performance, intense passion, and a constant quest for perfection.

For the All Blacks, that means total domination on the field (they are the only team to have won the Rugby World Cup thrice). For Bulgari, it translates to a special edition watch that marries its iconic Octo form with the Maori tattoo, one of the emblems of the All Blacks. As if an elegant timepiece wears a mask, the Bulgari Octo All Blacks is a perfect blend of technical sophistication and refined aesthetics.

As it turns out, executions like this are most wanted by clients, and the All Blacks watches have been particularly popular over the years.

So popular is the union that when All Blacks players, Regan Ware, Isaac Te Tamaki, and Teddy Stanaway, conducted a sports clinic on one sticky-hot afternoon in Singapore, a entire team of tots and rugby-mad adults arrived on the pitch. They were ready—and willing—to throw it down with the hulking pros. Balls went flying. Burgers were downed.

Everyone had fun. Buonamassa adds, “It’s a great way to convey our brand [through] this amazing team.”

ABSOLUTE ALTITUDE Te c h n i c a l l u x u r y t a k e s f l i g h t w i t h t h e B r e i t l i n g E x o s p a c e B 5 5 C o n n e c t e d .

B Y S A R G E L A C U E S TA JETSETTER MUST-HAVE brand Breitling recently raised the maximum altitude of the 21st century luxury watch by launching the Breitling Exospace B55 Connected, the exalted brand’s first timepiece tailor-made for aviation professionals. The launch, held at the Breitling Boutique at the Palais Renaissance on Orchard Road in Singapore, was heralded by a phalanx of uniformed models replete with aviators and epaulets: while you couldn’t look into their eyes, you felt comforted that someone gorgeous in uniform was keeping constant watch over your welfare—an experience not unlike wearing the Exospace B55 itself.

At a warm and sunny welcome luncheon at riverside restaurant Absinthe a few hours before the launch, Breitling Southeast Asia general manager Alvin Soon afforded me some personal time with the Exospace B55.

I remember thinking to myself: I can get away with calling myself a watch aficionado, but can I pass myself off as an actual aviation professional if I wore it? The models, keeping up stolid expressions under their mirrored lenses, judged me silently as I briefly replaced my current daily beater, whatever it was, with the giant 46mm Exospace B55. While it wasn’t yet connected to my smartphone so that I could perform remote adjustments on various

alarm, display, and operation parameters, I did feel strangely and immediately connected.

I had just come in on a short-haul flight from Manila, and I could only imagine the data it might have gathered had I worn it— flight times, lap times, etc.—and the kind of granularity it might have introduced into my brief transit here on earth. The Exospace, after all, and to begin with, was equipped with an electronic tachymeter, a chronograph capable of recording up to 50 split times and a countdown/countup system useful in enabling a sequence of timing operations.

In addition to delivering these incredibly detailed measurements to your smartphone,

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the Exospace B55 receives a host of notifications: incoming e-mails, SMS and appbased messages, phone calls, and caller ID, as well as upcoming appointments. And while your average smartwatch—and I include Apple’s in that description—might function in a similar manner, there was certainly more heft and substance in wearing a watch that was a watch first, before it was ever anything else. And if I wasn’t going to be mistaken for an experimental fighter pilot, I certainly welcomed the alternative—of being regarded as a serious buyer rather than a technological early adapter, or worse, a person who still lived with his parents.

Beyond these basic comparisons to your run-of-the-mill Foxconn-assembled smartwatch, the Exospace finds itself in pioneering territory. The watch sat large on my girlish wrists, but its black titanium case, decked with a gorgeous etched black bezel embellished by raised rider tabs, kept it breathtakingly light. A two-tone rubber

strap made sure it meant serious business. But certainly the most fascinating achievement of the Exospace is the face, bright and dark behind its glare-proof sapphire glass, confidently rendered in the classic Breitling manner that has won the massive brand millions of loyal fans: busy but not cluttered, all business but also all luxurious style. To wit: the dial gathers an analog dial and two LCD screens—powered by a backlighting system that is activated merely by pressing the crown, or by gently tilting the wrist. Black on black, with a sprinkle of white and scintillating blue: Breitling made sure it appealed to the masculine sensibilities of the cockpit.

And piloting the timepiece itself, the exclusive Breitling Caliber B55, a thermocompensated SuperQuartz movement that packs the powers of a 1/100th of a second chronograph, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a countdown/ countup (or Mission Elapsed Time), a flight time chronograph, a lap timer chronograph,

an electronic tachymeter, a countdown timer, a second time zone, seven daily alarms, a perpetual calendar with week display, and—helpfully—a battery change indicator. But perhaps, to would-be watch snobs like me, the real feat of the watch is that it is, incredibly, certified by the COSC, the gold standard of Swiss watch accuracy and precision that all mechanical watches arguably aspire to. This is the human part of the Exospace, the part that your everyday smartwatch can never have, no matter how hard they try to make Siri sound like a stern but lovely aunt.

That’s also because Breitling never wanted to be anybody’s aunt—or uncle, even. As perhaps the only luxury brand never afraid of embracing technology beyond the technical complication, Breitling has always nurtured a youthful, driven image, which is why it is able to successfully market such professionally specific timepieces to a mass audience. The very idea of a corporate professional purchasing the Exospace B55, something explicitly designed for pilots, lies not in the realm of possibility but in the area of expectation. My own semi-cultivated (and semi-youthful) instinct tells me that this is a watch that would be a natural selection for successful, technology-obsessed individuals: the frequent-flying, hotel reward-collecting, flight-attendant-appreciating men of this world, of which there are many, but of whom only a select few might be successful enough to be able to afford the Exospace B55.

The launch was wisely timed with the Singapore Airshow, a vast showcase of air power on both the civilian and military sides of the aviation community. The biennial event hosts high-level conferences for serious buyers and sellers and features global leaders in the air industry. For the gawking public, there is an incredible array of aircraft and airborne material on exhibit.

At this year’s Airshow, hordes of visitors took selfies by drones and ground-to-air missiles; they swooned to the thunderous aerobatic performance; they treated the F22 Raptors—and their supersized US Air Force pilots—as though they were celebrity sightings. In short, it was a perfect setting for Breitling’s launch. As a longtime sponsor of the Airshow and a bleeding edge technical luxury brand, Breitling set the stage for the watch that would embody the spirit of total air superiority.

Greenbelt 5.

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IF THE SHOE FITS The new Stefano Bemer democratizes bespoke.

B Y C L I F F O R D O L A N D AY

THOUGH LITTLE KNOWN, Stefano Bemer was held in high regard by shoe connoisseurs. The self-taught shoemaker sought nothing but perfection when creating his line of bespoke footwear, which only made them synonymous to the highest standards of elegance and quality, from Italy all the way to Japan. When Bemer passed away in 2012, it was one of his devotees who made it possible for the company to continue.

Tommaso Melani, the CEO of the new Stefano Bemer, has always been drawn to the uniqueness that customization offers. It was this idea of creating something extremely personal that he wanted to share with more men. You could say that he democratized the experience of bespoke as what was once reserved for the highest realm of shoemaking

has been made available to worlds of made-to-order (MTO) and readymade. These include components and exotic skins, or what the company calls the usual suspects, such as shark, elephant, hippo, croc, python, perch (as in the fish), and even a batch of Russian reindeer hide, which was recovered from a ship in 1786 and then “preserved using the tanning methods of the period.”

Melani sees a practical reason for the change. Sometimes you don’t need to go all the way to bespoke to reach its quality experience. “My size is 40.5 and I must admit I don’t need bespoke,” he says. For a pair of fairly regular feet, the kind with no specific issues that need to be addressed, any of their ready-made shoes will pretty much deliver CONTINUED

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ST Y L E

THE SEVENSHOE WARDROBE

SUNDAY Give them the slip

MONDAY Start strong

the same experience as their bespoke counterparts.

Well, almost the same, he amends, as nothing will beat a personal last when it comes to comfort.

Melani comes from a family of leather craftsmen.

His great-grandfather and grandfather founded Scuola Del Cuoio, a leathercraft school for young men, in the Monastery of Santa Croce in Florence as a way to help the orphans of World War II. “They wanted to do something for the city. Since they had the skills, they decided, together with the Franciscan friars, to teach the orphans the craft,” he says. Eventually, the school evolved into a high-end leather goods company specializing in bags. Though he “was raised among leather,” Melani points out that he does not have the skill to make shoes with Bemer-levels of quality.

But he knows the processes by heart, having been trained by the Japanese masters, who themselves were trained by Bemer, and more important, what would make the work even better.

“I brought a little flair to the ready-made collection,” he says. There are more colors, new materials for ready-made and MTO, and more lasts (now eight from the original four). Also of note, the Bemer toe box is a little more elongated, which makes the asymmetric shape of the last more evident.

“Our feet are not symmetric,” Melani says. “We support you by raising you on the instep and pushing you in. This gives you a position that I believe is correct and also very sexy.” In other words, comfort comes first, but there is also much effort to make you look good.

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When asked about the Bemer look, the CEO brings up the Italian notion of sprezzatura or “that capacity of expressing style and elegance without being put together.” Melani points to the sandy brown tassel loafers on his feet. “You can wear them with pants and a jacket, but they will look perfect with jeans as well,” he says. The loafers, by the way, are a made-to-order creation with very specific details: leather sourced from Argentina, suede tassels that are “contrasting but not too contrasting,” stitching that blends with the color of the leather, and piping that matches the color of the sole. “That’s what I mean,” he adds. “It’s something that you won’t see on the shelves when you walk into a store.”

Can you customize any of their styles?

“Absolutely,” he responds. “It’s mix and match.

Choose the last, style, leather, and sole.” The permutations are endless. In his own words, the number of styles is “impossible” to count.

While bespoke remains the heart of Stefano Bemer, Melani has made the MTO service its DNA. “I thought that you can get more in terms of quality and style,” he says. “You can have a chance to express a bit of yourself, as well.” And at its particular price point, below the knee-shaking costs of bespoke, nothing beats this proposition.

In Manila, Stefano Bemer is available at Signet, Legazpi Street, Makati.

TUESDAY A case for two blues

WEDNESDAY Broguein’

THURSDAY Raise the volume

FRIDAY Double up on texture

SATURDAY A lot of grain

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WE GO DEEP F o r t a r g e t e d r e p a i r, c o n s i d e r t h e s e r u m .

BY NICOLE LIMOS THE THINNER THE TEXTURE, THE BETTER IT IS ABSORBED. Skin care serums have smaller molecules than other products like creams and masks, allowing active ingredients to go deeper into the skin where they work better and faster.

The active ingredients of skin care products permeate different depths of the skin, depending on their carrier and molecule size. “For ingredients to take desired effects, they should at least be able to enter into the dermoepidermal junction, which is the area that connects the top layer of the skin to the deeper dermal layers,” says dermatologist Windie Hayano. When delivered to the skin at even deeper cellular levels, they can dramatically work in combating aging, sun damage, and oxidation, among many others.

Since serum formulas do away with thickening ingredients, mineral oils, and petroleum usually found in creams (mostly for locking in moisture), they have the most potent doses of active ingredients.

This is also why serums must be applied first before creams, which create a protective barrier over the skin and whose big molecules

A R T B Y WA R R E N E S P E J O

prevent penetration of other active ingredients. Where moisturizers and cleansers have around 10 percent active ingredients, serums can contain up to 70 percent of the good stuff. So for targeting specific problems like dark spots, wrinkles, or breakouts, dermatologists recommend the use of serums.

Perricone’s Vitamin C Ester serum, for instance, is a day serum that infuses the skin with antioxidants for instant and long-term skin brightening. Clinique for Men’s Dark Spot Corrector [1] doesn’t only work on sunspots and age spots, it also reduces ingrown hair. Another favorite is Lab Series Max LS Overnight Renewal Serum [2], which true to its name, repairs damage overnight, no matter how little you’ve slept or how much whisky you’ve had. For firmness, La Prairie’s Skin Caviar Crystalline Concentrate [3] harnesses the powers of caviar extract, peptides, and amino acids to lift your skin and improve the appearance of lines. If you need moisture, but have oily skin that breaks out with the use of creams, opt for Murad’s Hydro-Dynamic Quenching Essence [4], a light hydrating solution with the benefits of a serum.

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YOUNGER T h e p u r s u i t o f y o u t h m a y c o m e i n a b o t t l e o r w i t h t h e h e l p o f a d o c t o r.

IT USED TO BE OKAY TO NOT CARE. It was an old man’s pride to carry a face that was worn and ragged, filled with lines and patches.

The imperfections gave men character. They told their stories. And then, men started to care. But it wasn’t for the pursuit of vanity.

They wanted to do something about the lines and patches, because they wanted to appear strong and virile for longer. They wanted to feel good. They wanted to tell a different story. Which is to say that while you cannot stop aging, it is more than okay to slow its decay.

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I LLUSTRATIONS FROM THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

G RO O M I N G

ASK A DOCTOR

Dr. Z Teo of The Aivee Institute

Hey, Dr. Z, what should a man consider before undergoing a cosmetic procedure?

Peel away the years with a Korean grooming routine.

You must first consider whether or not it is really necessary. Is it just to rejuvenate yourself or make yourself look fresh, or is it you because you want to change your features? Subsequently, you must also consider the doctors you will speak to.

Choosing a surgeon or dermatologist that has experience treating men is important, because dealing with men is diferent from dealing with women. It’s very important to find a doctor who will be able to address your needs and look at things the way a man should look them.

B Y P AT R I C I A B A R C E L O N

Are Filipino men still hesitant about cosmetic treatments?

PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATIONS BY LOUIS ARENAS. INTERVIEWS BY MIGUEL ESCOBAR.

SKIN FLICK

KOREAN SKIN CARE has, in recent years, been growing a keen following with the young and old alike. The Korean skin care process, however, is not for those who don’t have the time (or let’s face it, the patience) to do the 10-step routine most brands recommend. When asked which products are the most essential, David Kim, international president of Korean skin care brand Areum, says that cleansing, moisturizing, and a weekly facial peel are the most basic steps in a grooming routine. “You need to use the peel to get rid of the old, dry, and dull skin cells and help the new skin cells come out,” he says. Areum has the Therapeel System I Exfoliating Polisher and the Therapeel System II Replenishing Fortifier, which are used together. The Exfoliating Polisher sweeps away the dead skin on the surface, while the Replenishing Fortifier tightens and nourishes your newly exfoliated face.

“But you should also use the lifting mask once a week,” Kim adds, explaining that the mask will greatly reduce fine lines and wrinkles if used on a regular basis. The Ultra Intensive Lifting Mask promises to not only lift, smoothen, and tighten skin, but also help your skin commit firmness to memory, ensuring faster results the longer you use the product.

It’s difficult not to take his words as gospel considering that Kim, who is in his late 50s, has the skin texture and glow of a 29-year-old. After all, who wouldn’t want glorious, luminous skin, the likes of a Korean telenovela heartthrob?

Rustan’s Makati.

TEST RUN P OWER V LIF TING LOTION BY L AB SERIES The skin on your face begins its droopy crawl south, as if it’s trying to sneak away from an old man. That’s you. The good folks at Lab Series want to help you keep it together with a solution that promises to “redefine the jaw line by firming the look of skin contours.” But why the focus on this part of the face? A man’s jaw is a signifier of strength. Have you heard about that man who got lucky at a bar by virtue of his angular face? Did you hear about the guy who was passed over at work because of his weak jowls? Do you know Brad Pitt? But back to the Power V Lifting Lotion: We like to think of it as more of a supercharged moisturizer with a light, perfect-for-summer texture. Sometimes you see a smidge of a lift happening, especially when you emerge from the shower. And sometimes that old man stares back at you from the mirror. Creepy. Certainly, in concert with other grooming products, your skin appears clearer and brighter and the grooves that threaten to become a chasm appear softer. But that lantern jaw? Maybe it will appear with more use and over time. Nevertheless, this feels good. –CO

Filipino men, or just men in general, are more hesitant to undergo cosmetic treatment because it is still mostly a procedure for women. It’s probably cultural... Also, men are a little bit more impatient, and the thought of going to a dermatologist or a surgeon for cosmetic treatments implies a lot of time and efort. It could be that they are too busy at work and they don’t think that it is a priority for them.

Why is it important to address a patient’s cosmetic concerns with minimally invasive procedures?

Because the results are more natural.

Radical cosmetic surgery usually leaves a more artificial look, and patients don’t really look like themselves anymore. That kind of defeats the purpose. We just want to enhance [what you have], not make you a completely diferent person.

What are the new technologies and machines at the forefront of medical aesthetics?

1. ThermiTight: Using minimally invasive surgery under local anesthesia, we use infrared to tighten up the jowls and double chin to give men a more contoured face.

2. Artas: This is a robotic hair transplant procedure with almost zero pain and zero downtime. The old method is stripcutting a bit of the scalp to take hair for re-implantation. With Artas, we get more guaranteed and precise results.

3. SculpSure: A patented cooling laser targets and reduces fat deposits in stubborn areas like love handles. With this, we can achieve almost 25 percent fat reduction in 25 minutes. This is painless, and people can go back to their normal activities with no downtime. aivee.ph.

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G RO O M I N G

ASK AN EXPERT

THICK A denser head of hair may be achieved in three months.

B Y C L I F F O R D O L A N D AY

THE JOURNEY TO A HEAD OF HAIR as gloriously full as Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s can begin with a trip to the barbershop and then continue in the privacy of your home.

We say it can begin with your barber because you can do the Scalp Deep Cleansing Treatment of the Serioxyl Range by L’Oréal Professionnel—scalp cleanse, shampoo, conditioner, mousse, serum—in your bathroom. But then again, you can also spoil yourself (a scalp massage is bliss) and surrender to the expert hands of a barber, who will do all that and cut your hair, too.

A lot of attention is lavished on your head in hopes of revving up your mane. The Serioxyl products applied to the scalp and hair combat hair thinning by restoring fiber density, improving resistance to breakage, and providing nutrients. One item in particular is intriguing: The Denser Hair Serum has something called Stemoxydine 5%, an agent that promises to awaken “dormant follicles to create new hair.” The barber applies it to sections of your scalp using a dropper and then massages the liquid in with his fingers. It tingles. Bliss.

Which now bring us to the mousse. If you’ve lived through the Great Mousse Craze of the ‘90s, you know that it creates fluffy hair. The barber wielding the Densifying Mousse might just be inclined to create maximum volume to prove its point. And what may happen next is a stealth trip to the restroom where you’ll pat down the billowy creation.

Back at home, the contents of the take-home kit plus the two serums are used in specific combinations for day and for night, depending on your goal: thicker hair, denser hair, or thicker and denser hair. There may be days when you don’t want to lather up and then massage your scalp. But diligence pays off. An investment in Serioxyl promises returns of luxuriant hair in three months. If all things work out, and considering that you didn’t have to see a doctor to achieve Trudeau-like hair, a splendid crown that has the power to win an election and make women swoon, this may be worth it.

L’Oréal Professionnel’s Serioxyl Treatment is available at Felipe & Sons. facebook.com/LOrealProfessionnel.PH.

Trichologist Teresa Cruz of Svenson

Hey, Ms. Cruz, can you share any embarrassing hair loss stories in your time as a trichologist?

For most men, hair loss automatically makes them look older.

When a guy in his late teens or early 20s starts to experience hair loss, it can be pretty traumatic. His friends will find it a topic of endless fun, and he can often find himself getting shy and withdrawn around girls. When a stranger is referring to a group of men, it’s often the tall one or the short one. Who wants to be the bald one?

What measures can a man take to prevent hair loss?

Keep the hair and, even more important, the scalp clean and healthy.

But also remember that, in many cases, hair loss for men is not simply a question of did they or didn’t they take care of their hair and scalp. Genetic factors play a huge part, too. Some men actually make the problem worse.

When they see strands being lost whenever they wash their hair, they stop washing it often. This is the worst thing they can do. Washing once a day is an absolute minimum, especially in a climate like ours.

What’s the difference between hair loss prevention treatments and hair restoration treatments?

Restoration is physically giving a person back the hair that they’ve lost.

Despite some advertising claims, you cannot grow back hair on a bald head.

Therefore, if a person wants more hair, it has to be added by a system like hair weaving. This adds natural human hair matched with the client’s hair. It is then cut, styled, and blended to his hair. The client will need to visit the center on a regular basis because as his own hair grows, it loosens the hair system. It just means he’ll substitute visits to the barber with visits with us.

When should men really consider doing something about hair loss?

We often compare our role to dentists. Fifty years ago, many people only went to the dentist when it was too late. Now, we practice preventive dentistry to avoid problems. If more clients came to us at the very first signs of hair loss, we could definitely slow down the rate of loss and save a higher percentage of hair. svenson.com.ph.

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ASK A DOCTOR

Dr Windie Hayano of The Skin Inc Dermatology and Laser Center

Hey, Dr. Windie, why should men want to look younger at all?

Taking care of yourself means you are conscientious about other things, including potential partners, employers, and friends, in your life. How you look says a lot about you. I think now the playing field is more even, and there’s more pressure on men to look good.

NEVER FADE AWAY A legendary plant could be the answer to all o f y o u r s k i n ’s a g i n g c o n c e r n s .

BY AUDREY N. CARPIO

MEN HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE LUXURY of being allowed to age gracefully and with dignity. A wrinkled brow bestows wisdom, crinkly eyes tell of a life laughed well, and each etch mark reveals a different journey traveled. This doesn’t mean, however, that men can’t and shouldn’t use antiaging technologies the way women do.

Protecting one’s skin goes beyond mere vanity, and keeping up a healthy, youthful visage is as simple as applying the right kind of facial cream.

The Provençal brand L’Occitane has always made formulations that are plantbased and nature-derived. Butter from the shea nut, oil from lavender, milk from the almond—plants and flowers have always been the star ingredient long before organic became a trend. Now celebrating the their 40th anniversary, it’s worth looking at one of L’Occitane’s most successful offerings, the Immortelle line of anti-aging products.

The Immortelle is a bright yellow flower naturally found on the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea, and it gets its name from the fact that it never wilts or fades, even after being plucked. In 2001, L’Occitane’s founder, Olivier Baussan, happened to meet a distiller there who used the essential oil of the flower to treat a burn wound. He took the wild

plant back to Provence to study it further, and found many amazing anti-aging properties that have yet to be applied in the cosmetics industry. Though a new discovery in the commercial skin care world, the immortelle has long been used in traditional healing by the older generations, with even a mention in a Greek Homerian tale, when Nausicaa saves Odysseus from a shipwreck and rubs his body with immortelle as an elixir of youth.

Committed to sustainability, L’Occitane works with eight families of Corsican farmers and distillers who produce the essential oil from a harvest of some three billion flowers each year, grown in an ecofriendly way without the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and GMO seeds. There are two ranges in the Immortelle line, the Precious and the Divine, with the Divine cream containing a higher concentration of the essential oil and five patents that stimulate collagen production, encourage microcirculation, fight free radicals, lift and boost firmness, and maximize regeneration of the skin’s protective barrier.

If the immortelle was good enough for Odysseus, it should certainly be good enough for the face of any other mortal man.

What’s one thing that men can do to look younger right now?

Apply sunblock and keep reapplying sunblock. Premature aging and skin cancer aren’t sexy on anyone. A regimen of cleanser, moisturizer, preferably ones with an active ingredient like a retinoid, AHAs, or BHAs, and sun protection will go a long way. By age 30, you should be seeing your dermatologist on a regular basis.

What are the most important skin care concerns that men should address in order to look younger?

For Filipino men or Asians in general, pigmentation issues occur, but that does not really bother men so much. What they do come for is the scarring from previous acne they had as teens. Most of them admit that treatment has been long overdue. They just didn’t care as teens, but now it matters enough for them to want to do something about it. They’re also worried about acne (but everyone is), eye bags (tear troughs), or naso-jugal folds. These are caused by volume and structural loss. Most patients would just point and draw along deep lines and folds, classifying everything as a big wrinkle, but these are a bit more complex in nature.

What does it mean for men to age gracefully in terms of skin care?

The very nature of this question points to dichotomies that exist. There is a bigger pressure on women to look younger, but that’s changing now. Even Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise knew this and had to come to terms with it, which made their makeovers rather controversial (compare photos of Tom then and now, especially at the last BAFTAs). Men need to stop being dismissive about aging and do preventive measures early, because it will catch up on them whether they like it or not. Have a skin care regimen. Moisturize. Use sunblock. Have laser treatments. They work, and are much less painful than a breakup.

Don’t be afraid to try Botox and fillers because you could use them, too. Walking around with sagging skin, hallowed out cheeks, and deeply etched wrinkles or looking like you’ve done meth does not look good on Facebook or Snapchat. Look up Mick Jagger then and now. It just might send you to our ofice.

Tritan Plaza Building, Paseo de Magallanes, Makati. +632 853 3024.

Rustan’s Makati.

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G RO O M I N G

NOTES ON NOTES

TOP Grapefruit, tarragon, cardamom Consider these the first impression of any cologne.

Top note molecules evaporate quickly, and so serve as more of an accent to the succeeding notes.

BY MIGUEL ESCOBAR

WITH THE GOAL OF CREATING SOMETHING

and decidedly British, awardwinning perfumer Francis Kurkdjian presents Burberry’s newest fragrance for men. “The story behind Mr. Burberry is to go back to the barbershop,” he says. “It’s about that freshness, that cleanness; yet infused with a very high level of sensuality.”

In a mix that includes cardamom, birch leaf, and vetiver, Kurkdjian highlights the addition of anise. “It’s fresh, aromatic, and a bit sweet without being sugary sweet—like how fennel can be sweet sometimes,” he explains. “That sweetness allows me to bring a kind of sensual quality, a kind of happiness, without being fruity or sugary.”

Mr. Burberry also pays tribute to the black trench coat, one of the house’s icons, through the design of its bottle. The cap references the coat’s buttons, while the knot around the bottle’s neck IRREVERENT

is made of English-woven gabardine, the fabric that Thomas Burberry himself invented over 100 years ago.

The cologne, which leads an entire collection of grooming products and ready-to-wear clothes and accessories, is accompanied by a campaign shot by renowned English film director Steven McQueen (you may remember him for his Academy Awardwinning work, 12 Years a Slave). Using 70mm film, McQueen captures Mr. Burberry’s sensual appeal with images of a couple going on a passionate weekend escapade. “I was told from the beginning how it’s a seduction,” the perfumer observes.

“There is a real story. It feels fluid, from the bottle to the name to the juice.”

Mr. Burberry (P5,300 for 100ml). Just in time for Father’s Day, your bottle of Mr. Burberry can be engraved at SM Makati from June 8 to 15.

Often referred to as heart notes, these are the scents that emerge in the middle of a cologne’s dispersion. They are the mellow, pleasant scents that mitigate the often too-strong impression of base notes.

BASE Vetiver, guaiac wood, sandalwood These notes take the longest to evaporate, and therefore are the strongest, fullest lingering scents in a cologne. The base notes and middle notes constitute the theme of a fragrance.

FACE TIME Here’s an unbeatable grooming proposition: For each sale of the Ultra Facial Cream Limited Edition, with packaging featuring artwork by Erwan Heussaf and Isabelle Daza, Kiehl’s will donate 100 percent of its proceeds to the Payatas Orione Foundation. So while you supply round-the-clock moisture to your skin, you also help provide one meal a day to kids ages two to eight. And that, my friend, is a very good reason to take care of your face.

Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream Limited Edition Designs (P1,575, available until July 2016), Greenbelt 5.

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I LLUSTRATIONS BY LOUIS ARENAS.

NOW SMELL THIS M r. B u r b e r r y i s a f r e s h y e t s e n s u a l f r a g r a n c e .

MIDDLE Birch leaf, nutmeg oil, cedarwood

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C H A R LS O N O N G O N SA N J UA N C I R I LO F. BAU T I STA O N I OWA

EDITED BY SARGE LACUESTA ARTWORKS BY ELAINE NAVAS COURTESY OF WEST GALLERY

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IN HIGH SCHOOL, I OFTEN GLIMPSED ACTRESS GINA ALAJAR STROLLING ON THE STREET TANGENT TO OURS AND FELT AN ACHING WHENEVER SHE PASSED.

E S Q U I R E

WET DAYS IN SAN JUAN

BY CHARLSON ONG

“They say the mayfly lives only for a day. Pity the mayfly born on a wet day,” writes the bard.

I say pity the mayfly born anywhere in San Juan, Metro Manila, on St. John the Baptist Day. When I was growing up, San Juan was off limits on June 24 to anyone averse to being bathed by exultant strangers. At the crack of dawn, San Juan residents are out in the streets, pails and tabo in hand, throwing water at each other and at passing cars and jeepneys.

As a child, this was one day I anticipated with much good cheer and careful planning.

The San Juan I grew up in was a small town of scraggy hills and middle-class residences.

Our family had moved to the town in 1962— still considered distant then from Manila—so we kids could go to Xavier School that had a new seven-hectare campus in Little Baguio.

There we lived among ghosts, dwende, and Spanish colonial style houses with small gardens and duck ponds before the influx of Chinese-Filipino families through the next three decades that turned Greenhills into the posh residence and shopping area it is today.

My immigrant Chinese grandmother dubbed Little Baguio “barbarian village” for the Chinese mestiza ladies who played mahjong without let up and a number of “kept women” and “second families.” Our one miserly Chinese sari-sari store owner, later vegetable vendor, Pablo, bald and wiry, gossiped like an old crone in his all-weather sando and shorts, but he showed up at our place one day, in a suit and tie, saying he was off to China for his son’s wedding. It was the first time anyone had thought of him as a family man. He had lived alone in our neighborhood since anyone could remember, later on with a pricey dog that had been abandoned because of a disease.

He had tended the animal back to health.

In time, the vacation homes were mostly abandoned, and we neighborhood kids grew up thinking of them as haunted lairs of monsters and kapre. Then there were all those stories about people killed or buried

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in the area during World War II. I guess it was partly our parents’ way of keeping us from roaming too far or too late into the talahib. But really, who doesn’t believe in ghosts? After all, there were the occasional skull and bones dug up, and once, a fairly fresh hand.

But Little Baguio had celebrity too. My mom remembers sighting a scion of the late President Quezon every evening during the six o’clock mass at the Mary the Queen Parish Church, beside Xavier School. An apartment block not far from ours was said to be owned by the boxing legend of the day—Gabriel “The Flash” Elorde. In 1969 we had a movie star, Joseph Estrada, for mayor, and another one, Ric Rodrigo, as neighbor. He became ninong to many kids on our street, Maximo Reyes— named after a former mayor—for the year or two, lived there after separation from spouse Rita Gomez. In high school, I often glimpsed actress Gina Alajar strolling on the street tangent to ours and felt an aching whenever she passed.

Time was when neighbors begrudged us for failing to splash them with water from our batya on St. John’s Day. It was literally good, clean fun. As the years passed, the pails and tabo were replaced by garden hoses that neighbors trained on each other. And then on my tenth year, trouble erupted as some “outsider” threw dank estero water up the miniskirt of a pretty lass. Her grandfather reportedly chased after the offender with his shotgun, though I don’t remember hearing gunfire from our street.

That, I reckon, marked the end of San Juan, my San Juan, as a small town. The Baptist’s Day would never again be the same in our neighborhood. It seemed at once that we were among strangers with sinister designs and the old rules no longer held.

Not long after this incident, Pablo, who had recently returned from China with gifts of lychees and tea, went missing for over a week, he had never missed a day of work since anyone could remember. When the cops broke into his home they found his mutilated corpse, hogtied. He had lately hired a young man, another “outsider,” for chores, and suspicion quickly fell on the missing guy with robbery as the main motive. But why the ghastliness? Why the anger or hatred? The investigation never went far as Pablo had no known relatives in the country. His surname association—it was only then we found out he was a Lim—arranged for a cremation, and there was a brief piece in a tabloid about the killing, and that was that. It was the first murder in our neck of the woods since anyone could remember, and we kids missed dousing him the following St. John’s Day. For sometime, I thought of the water festivity in our town as peculiar. I tended to agree with elders that, as is often the case, Filipinos had overdone things and transformed a Christian feast into a grotesque

orgy. That is, beyond emulating the Baptist’s sprinkling of blessed water among the faithful—he actually dunked them in the river Jordan—we’ve made him the patron saint of firemen and riot dispersal units.

But in Yunnan, China, I witnessed a similar festival among the Miao people. One day a year, members of this community throw water at each other in wet and wild abandon. The festival dates back to antiquity and minorities in Thailand, and other places in East Asia are supposed to have similar celebrations.

It is quite possible then that like some other Philippine festivals and traditions, such as the fertility rites in Obando, Bulacan, communal dousing has pre-Christian origins.

In most religions, water is a sacred purifier.

Hindus douse themselves in the Ganges, and Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John.

Being island denizens, playing with water was likely the most natural sport among our forebears. Whatever its origins, water throwing and dousing, done without malice, serves to mend strained relationships and to reaffirm community ties. Once a year we can be children again, shorn of our expensive clothes and civic airs, defined not by wealth or social standing, but by a most common, life-giving substance. It’s not too different from teammates splashing cold water or champagne on each other and on their coaches after winning a championship.

But San Juan is far from being a small town these days. It is a city now, a “thoroughfare” through which many from other places in Metro Manila pass. It is home to wealth and celebrity. It is no longer a place where most everyone knows his or her neighbor and where every resident can celebrate the Baptist’s Day. Communal water throwing may be another agricultural tradition that has run up against Big City life.

Through the years, irate commuters and motorists have knocked off not a few teeth, and I’m almost certain more than one wise guy has been blown away by an enraged grandfather for molesting with water. In the 1980s, water throwing on San Juan Day was

prohibited after 10 in the morning. Still, as with alcohol, the pleasures provided by water can be addictive and once unleashed, the demons of wetness must have their way.

We moved to Mandaluyong in 1987, and since then, water throwing has been a thing of the past for me. Little Baguio has transformed into condominiums and chic bistros. But one fine San Juan Day, it would be fun to drop by the old neighborhood to catch some kids perhaps dousing the barangay captain or a bald, wiry vegetable vendor and his pricey dog.

Charlson Ong Novelist and Essayist

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IOWA CITY, 1969 CIRILO F. BAUTISTA

I CLIMBED THE STAIRS TO THE SECOND FLOOR AND THERE, ON THE VESTIBULE, WAS BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS SMILING. “SEE, I TOLD YOU YOU WOULDN’T GET LOST,” HE SAID.

Autumn was waiting for me when I arrived in Iowa City, and it at once brought to my mind Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” with the leaves of the trees twining “yellow and black and pale and hectic red.” I felt autumn was putting on a show for me as everywhere I looked were picture-postcard sceneries in this small, quaint provincial city. The quietude, the simple folk, and the unhurried pace of life that it offered me stirred my imagination.

I was given rooms at the Mayflower Apartments, recently established, with the other fellows. This would be my home for the next four months or so. I shared the kitchen and bathroom with a poet from Portugal.

Later, I learned there were about 15 of us fellows, mostly from Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Next day, I visited Paul Engle, director of the International Writers Program, in his office. He was, to all intents and purposes, the Big Man of the Writing enterprise. A Bob Hope look-alike, Paul was good-humored and always ready to listen to our side of anything.

He said I just missed seeing Jorge Borges who visited them two days ago. Under Paul’s management and direction, the Program flourished. Annually he raised a million dollars from institutions and individuals who believed in literary development.

Our life in the Program was unstructured, almost free-wheeling. Although there were scheduled activities, no one was obliged to do what they did not like so long as they did not violate the law. Engle told us that we were there not to work, but as a reward for what we had achieved in writing at that time in our lives. Aside from listening to a few lectures of visiting American writers like Kurt Vonnegut, W.S. Merwin and Rob Creeley, I spent my time going around Iowa. I enjoyed looking at the inscriptions on the tombstones in the cemeteries and watching the beautiful women of Coe College just a few miles outside town.

Several times I took the day trip to Chicago City to visit high school classmates who were now living there.

But mostly we were left to ourselves to ponder the world and cook our meals. On a limited budget, I rarely went out to eat. Canned

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goods and ice cream saved my days, but not my body, which went overweight. And I wrote, wrote, wrote. Alone and lonely, I confronted myself each morning with the resolve to finish my epic The Archipelago, the first in a projected trilogy. This was important to me as it was the reason I gave to Engle for wanting to get into the Workshop and besides, what would I do in a strange place with strange people except forget them? I wrote Ophelia Dimalanta in UST that I would finish the epic “if it killed me.” I kept

to my room, but to avoid insanity, I took walks in the park. Autumn was now full-blown. The falling leaves reached up to my knees. Black birds cackled in the trees and squirrels were at work hoarding their winter provisions. You could hear Edith Piaf singing the famous song, and if you were not careful you might have shed a tear or two.

I knew that others in the Mayflower Apartments had writing projects too.

There was the Cuban fictionist putting the

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finishing touches to his novel, and a girl from Taiwan finalizing her first collection of poetry. Whenever Paul Engle visited us at the apartments, he marveled at the amount of writing going on in the place. That was because of the space and time that the Workshop gave us, which we translated into production. It facilitated the machinery of the imagination and made writing a pleasant pursuit. A writer needs to write, and when the conflicts, the stress and strain of this need are

alleviated, the imagination functions properly.

However, a full abandonment of work defuses that need and recharges the imagination in the meanwhile. When we went on an overnight trip to Des Moines, we were really escaping from that time and space. Sometimes we went to the movies or dined at the German colony on the outskirt of town.

One evening, Engle organized a poetry reading with the fellows reading their own poems. It revealed to me the riches and

diversities of the kind of poetic artistry encouraged by the Workshop. Both traditional and contemporary styles were represented.

A poet from Brazil read his poem entitled “Sonnet with Form.” It consisted of the word “form” repeated in 14 lines. Nothing more.

The poet from Tanzania objected that that could not be a poem because it was not a rendition of a thematic matter. An argument ensued as to what real poetry was, and the Tanzanian would not accept the virtues of modern verse. He asked me to re-read the poem I read earlier before the Brazilian read his own. I recited “The Sea Gull” from my first book The Cave and Other Poems, which I had brought with me.

“That’s it! That’s poetry,” the Tanzanian exclaimed, standing and clapping his hands.

The Brazilian was livid but could only keep his arguments to himself unable as he was to speak in English. But we understood with his gestures that he was willing to settle the dispute with the Tanzanian outside. That interested me a lot, as I had not yet witnessed a fight in the name of poetry. And it could go into different permutations—Brazil versus Tanzania; modern verse versus traditional verse; white versus black; etc.

Indeed it would have been reflective of the stress and turmoil the US was experiencing then. Racism was tearing apart the fabric of American society. Martin Luther King, Jr. provided the universal cry for the end to segregation. I felt the tension in Iowa City and being black myself (because I was not white), I was careful of my comments on the matter. Luther King had a dream and he was marching to Washington to demand the freedom of black Americans, and people on campus feared the worst. In their unguarded moments, some white officers of the Apartments betrayed their prejudices. Asians were favorite victims. On the surface, social life seemed normal. We wrote and played ping-pong and basketball at the civic center.

But when I told Engle that I would go to Saint Louis on the invitation of students there, he advised me not to go. He could not guarantee my safety in Missouri.

Quite strangely enough, I never wrote about segregation when I was experiencing it. It is as if my imagination evaded it, knowing its unpleasantness and inhumanity.

It was just too close to the human time frame for me to treat it with fictive neutrality, to distance it from my soul. Why not? Is not poetry a record of the soul and so the soul deserves poetry’s attention? I find it difficult to transform language through the agency of the spirit and so give it the character that will achieve the poet’s craft. The soul is the seat of reasoning, and passion is the seat of craft.

Poetry is passion controlled by language, but passion is wild. It has to be tamed to fit into a predetermined craft anatomy. Language does this—it orders and re-orders passion,

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if not, passion remains merely authentic, not artistic. If it is too close to the poet’s experience, the closeness makes it too difficult to understand. Time and language are the mediators in the poetic workshop, the one insuring distance, and the other offering contemplation.

But of course I was absorbing the racial situation and making notes for future use. We discussed it amongst ourselves but kept our opinions to ourselves. Even in a simple place like Iowa City, where farmers in their working boots and plain clothes transacted in the bank, there were citizens who did not suffer criticism of their social views.

Indeed it was a very turbulent time, but very little disturbance came to Iowa. The Beat poets dominated the poetic scene, with Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and George Starbuck, among many, showing how poetry could be recast

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into an existing medium that responded to the challenges of social change. The Beat poets (so-called because they had the beat.

So did the Beatles) rejected the traditional materials of English poetry and advocated the renovation of language. These would produce “the beat” which would make poetry exciting and enjoyable. “To have the beat,” or, “to be with the beat,” was to be attuned to the energy of the universe. Aesthetically, this was almost annihilistic for it favored freedom from existing norms.

But I too favored Beat poetry. Being an amateur poet, I thought poetry was directly related to politics and that the motto was “write any way you like.” In fact, it seemed more like “violate everything.” Ginsberg exclaimed “bullshit” once when Marianne Moore declared that the language of English poetry was naturally iambic. At the same time, he employed a variety of metric

structures to carry the rhythm of the poem.

People who believed the beat philosophy were called “beatniks” (after the Russian “sputnik”) or hippies (to be “hip” was to be with time). A kind of sub-language emerged, just as we have the sub-language of the gays and lesbians today. The hippies’ long hair, dark glasses, and outlandish apparel distinguished them from the “establishment” or the normal persons. They influenced the fashion of the ’60s and ’70s such that even non-beats dressed like the beats. Here in the Philippines, the beat generation was at the vanguard of student activism. They led social demonstrations with the aim of bringing down the established authorities. Boys looked like girls with their unusual appearance. When the ROTC commanders in DLSU ordered the boys to change to military haircuts, the boys objected and boycotted their training.

Later, a compromise was reached—the boys

were permitted to cover their long hair with hairnets so that it would not protrude from under their helmets.

There were social agitators and radicals in Iowa, of course, who teamed up with campus writers to advance their cause. I don’t know if Paul Engle believed in them, but he welcomed them to the Workshop just the same. In fact I became friends with one of them, a black poet by the name of Evans (I forget his first name) who visited me in my room once. He was a member of the Black Panther Movement, reputedly the military arm of the Black Movement. He was flexing a hand pump as he talked, in preparation for the “big day,” he said. He rolled his own Mary Jane and taught me how to smoke it. Ever smiling, his teeth flashing in the sun, Evans loved his revolution, but sought the haven of poetry when the struggle became too heavy.

It was also about this time that I met for the

first time Bienvenido N. Santos, the novelist after whom Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center was named. He was carrying a tennis racket on his way to a match. He invited me for dinner that night. When I asked him where he lived, he said, “Five streets from the Mayflower Apartments. You won’t get lost. Just follow your nose.” I wondered at his strange instructions but was too proud to ask him for clarifications.

That evening, I set out early to look for his place. It was very chilly, the cold seeped through my inadequate clothes. In fact, I had not brought enough warm clothing to see me through the unfamiliar weather. On the corner of the fifth street from my Apartments, I stopped trying to decide whether to turn right or left. I turned right. After a few minutes, the air smelled differently. There was the scent of cooking coming from one of the houses, the scent of onions and garlic frying. Then I knew.

I followed the smell leading to an apartment house. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and there, on the vestibule, was Bienvenido N. Santos smiling. “See, I told you you wouldn’t get lost,” he said.

Inside the house was a group of Filipino graduate students cooking some meals for the Santoses. The food was heaven to me—adobo, some pancit and spring rolls as you could find only in the Philippines. In those times, in the absence of fast food outlets, the home supplied the meals we needed. No McDonald’s, no Kenny Rogers, no Jollibee, but there was home cooking. In America in the 1960s you yearned for Filipino food, your heart’s one true love, though it was hard to find.

I asked Santos about his life in Iowa. He replied that he enjoyed teaching with all its challenges and rewards. The students responded in a way he never expected. They were outspoken but sincere and did their assignments.

Ben was a “pensionado” (scholar) of the Philippine government studying in America when the Second World War broke out.

He received instructions to stay put, not to come home, and use his time spreading news to American audiences about the war developments in the Philippines. Then he travelled across the United States and accumulated materials that figured in the creation of his stories.

As a writer, Santos was a natural. He did not read much literary criticism nor pay attention to what critics said about his work. To him, writing was an act of self-expression to shape an idea or an emotion in meaningful form.

The work must be dulce et utile, beautiful and inspiring, clarifying the human conflicts of the lives of simple folks.

I differed from him on that matter. For me, the writer should put himself on a limb, explore unfamiliar territories, extend the boundaries of crafts making. A poem, or a

story, after all, is a linguistic construction which calls for some kind of daring, some kind of innovation, to attain its fictional objective.

When I write I imagine the boundaries of the poem. Since it has to have integrity, everything placed within these confines must help transform the emptiness into a significant utterance. Language must interact with time and space, no less, carrying the parts of the poem to logical and magical destinations. So I arrive at something I never thought of before, though it begins and ends with my reason. I make magic by turning old words into new meanings, and fractured rhythm into vibrant formulation. I examine the word’s history, its bits and pieces that have clung to its skin, to give it new clothes. That is the magic—words re-invented, changed and changed again. The writing here is fast, the words tumble like leaves on the page; then, in an instance, they are swept into one pile and laid on the ground again in an order that satisfies me, one by one.

It’s like I’m putting cards on the table, playing solitaire, it’s like I’m writing calligraphy.

Painstaking and sure, painstaking and sure— that’s how the words come.

Then I stop as if waken from a spell. I don’t know how those words get to be strung together, but I cannot continue adding to them. Is this the breaking of the spell? I also feel I’ve lost something—the need or urgency for writing. I make coffee and read the book that is on my current reading list. I divert my mind from wanting to write as much as possible, I get out of the poem’s boundary.

After a cup, I remember I’m supposed to write a poem. I re-enter the boundary and pick up where I left, trying to make the time link seamless as though I never lost time.

Sometimes, I am utterly incapable of starting again. Something has been lost—the magic?— and the urgency to create dissipates. There’s nothing to do now but stop writing for the day.

Better to get a hammer and nails and fix the backyard fence or watch TV. This is reverse psychology of course. The more I get away from the poem, the closer I get to it. I keep the poem at the forefront of my mind, so that every hammer stroke imitates the iambic pentameter, and words swirl and swirl in my head. I keep them for tomorrow when I will be more free and easy. For to write poetry, one must be relaxed, and focused, their ideas interplay with emotion. In truth, I am writing in my mind though not on paper. I see the words marching to assume their positions in the verse. But it’s oftentimes a frustrating act.

I find it difficult to keep the words in position, they get lost in the sound of hammering, in the chirping of the birds in the garden.

This stoppage of writing develops into an extended inability sometimes. I’ve had a writer’s block for as long as a year. That’s when I regret having taken up writing. To remove the block, to get into the border of creation

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again, I engage in other activities. Aside from fixing the fence, I may tinker with the engine of my car, or paint a landscape in watercolor, or just sit by the window watching the passage of time. I see words moving in the air but I let them go by.

When I feel carefree and relaxed again, I re-read the unfinished poem quickly to get the sense of poetic location. Where was I when I stopped writing? Only then will I have an idea of where I want the poem to go. I know the poem is finished when it does not want to go anywhere anymore. That sounds esoteric but I simply mean that the poem now is the sum of what it can be. I cannot add to or subtract from its reality. Indeed you will only damage the poem if you add to or subtract from it. Thus, some will say that the poem finished itself, as if the poem, is an agency separate from the poet.

When the poem is finished I go into the last place of production—editing. This confers on a poem a clarity of expression. All linguistic problems are resolved on the level of grammar and on the level of figurativeness. Then I read the poem, I speak the poem, the last act of creation, and the poem is really finished.

I told all of this to Santos while we were eating our supper in his house. He kept nodding. “Do you revise a poem? I mean major changes,” he asked. “I edit it while writing it, but not really revise it,” I said.

“I want to keep the poem as it is in its first completion.” Santos said that when writing a story, he made a literary chart, a big piece

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of paper on which he wrote the characters’ names and their roles in the story, plus the various big incidents that would take place in the plot. Because of this help, Santos rarely got lost in the story he was weaving.

Keeping such a chart in writing a poem is problematic. For one, a chart notes down events in progressive steps, while the movement of poetry is cyclical, even a forward-backward movement. Still some notes of any kind will help in the production of a poem.

The graduate students said goodbye to Santos late into the night. I had talked to them about their experiences in America— then it was America, not the US—and what stories of immigration they had—then it was immigration, not diaspora. Their stories of hope and love, of suffering and tragedy, of achievement and redemption would become materials for Philippine literature in the future. Santos would do it in his story collection, The Day the Dancers Came.

I would bump into Santos several times in the Iowan University Campus. We walked along the river that traversed the campus ground and talked about what was happening to America and the Philippines. He was elated when I told him that I had published my poems in three American magazines and got paid for them—in American dollars yet! We talked of the writers workshop and agreed that that it did contribute to the improvement of the fellows’ art. And about Paul Engle, the indefatigable director who was the kindest

soul I know in Iowa. He was like a father to me, always keeping watch over me. On the day I was to leave Iowa to return to Manila, he told me I could stay on in the program for another term if I wanted to so I could finish The Archipelago. Much as I wanted to, I could not. My wife had just given birth to my first boy in QC and I wanted to be with my family.

Engle accompanied me to a small airport where I would take a plane to Des Moines and from there take another plane to Chicago where my flight to Manila could be booked. As we waited, Engle regaled me with stories of his life, about a boy from the farms and how he did well in the world of literature and creative writing. At some points there was a catch in his voice as he related the travails he underwent.

He was so human, so knowledgeable of things and their significance. In his relationship with the fellows, I discovered that the Workshop was more about finding your true worth as a person than about crafting a masterpiece. We are all brothers, Engle would say.

The small plane soon arrived. Passengers lined up to board it. I stood up to say goodbye to Engle. He said, “good luck,” then he shook my hand. I felt him press something into my palm. When I looked later, I saw it was a 50-dollar bill. I walked quickly to the airplane.

That way he would not see me crying.

Cirilo F. Bautista National Artist for Literature

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THE MONEY CLIP WALLET

Change? Leave them at home.

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THE TRAVEL WALLET

THE ZIP-OVER POUCH

Its larger-than-regular dimension make room for the well-used passport, that long floppy airline ticket, money, IDs, credit cards, and then some. This is for the frequent flyer or, you know, a man who has a lot of stuf and likes to keep everything in its right place.

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6/16

LIKE a FISH NEEDS a BICYCLE Jennylyn Mercado has hit her stride with a slew of romantic comedies, acting awards, and magazine covers in just a few short years.

Esquire sits down with the actress who plays the role of cinema’s lovable sweetheart, and of both parents to seven-year-old Jazz.

BY AUDREY N. CARPIO PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHAIRA LUNA

Magazine Q&As are allotted to the hair and makeup shift, half of which is drowned out by the noise of the hair dryer. Jennylyn is as accommodating as she can be, however, and one can’t begrudge her grueling schedule as she has taken on the roles of two persons: mother and father.

In the past couple of years, the actress has emerged as the newest romcom queen, a kind of young Julia Roberts, quirky and sassy with the right amount of vulnerability. Her turns in “maindie” films like English Only, Please, The Prenup, and Walang Forever, opposite male heartthrobs Derek Ramsay, Sam Milby, and Jericho Rosales respectively, have garnered her acting awards and a steady stream of work. In her latest movie, Just the Three of Us, Jennylyn’s character gets impregnated by an airline pilot, played by the ultimate romcom king John Lloyd Cruz. She then goes to great lengths to entreat him to fulfill his paternal duties. “Parang life story ko,” Jennylyn quips.

“Hindi pala, one night stand siya. Malayong malayo sa akin.”

Jennylyn’s tumultuous past has been no secret—at the age of four she already made newspaper headlines as the victim of

child abuse at the hands of her stepfather. Her biological mother was working abroad at the time, and only came home to bail the assailant from jail. Lydia Mercado, Jen’s aunt, took her away and legally adopted her. The two have been living together since, with Lydia raising her single-handedly while she worked at a garment factory.

“Minaltrato siya, adik kasi. Nagkatrauma siya, pero naunti-unting nawawala. Hindi siya nagrebelde, I am thankful for that,” says Lydia, a regal lady with a silver-white pixie haircut. She describes Jen’s childhood as religious, disciplined, with church at the center of their lives. “Hindi mahilig sa barkada. Kami lang dalawa. Hanggang sa ngayon.”

The quiet choirgirl, who initially harbored no dreams of becoming an artista, got her big break in 2003 on Starstruck, a GMA reality talent show on which she emerged as the Ultimate Survivor. A teen star on the rise, Jennylyn hit a road bump when she got pregnant at the age of 21. After giving birth, she returned to work—starring in middling afternoon soaps. But it just wasn’t CONTINUED

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BLACK RIBBED DRESS BY EVE THE LABEL. BED BY MOSAIC LIVING. OPPOSITE: DRESS BY KEEPSAKE THE LABEL.

It’s difficult to set up some personal interview time with Jennylyn Mercado. It’s damn near impossible, actually, with her schedule plotted out to the last minute—her week is entirely filled with tapings, rehearsals, and shoots; squeezed in is some time for working out, and whatever precious little hours that remain free, will of course be spent with her seven-year-old son, Jazz.

BODYSUIT BY H&M. MAHOGANY STOOL, WOODEN SIDE TABLE, AND DAYBED SOFA BY MOSAIC LIVING.

T H E M E D I A N A R R AT I V E OF HER REDEMPTION, R E STO R AT I O N O R R E E M E R G E N C E—T H AT I S , W H E N S H E F I N A L LY G OT H E R G R O OV E BAC K— I S I N T R U T H A S E X I ST TA K E D OW N O F A WO M A N ’S L I F E J O U R N E Y.

the same. Her luster had faded, as if the industry was punishing her for having a child, and one out of wedlock, at such a young age. The media narrative of her redemption, restoration, or reemergence—that is, when she finally got her groove back—is in truth a sexist takedown of a woman’s life journey (you don’t see the showbiz careers of deadbeat dads suffering any). Married or not, having her son would only make Jennylyn a better actress, and a better human being. While working on Rosario back in 2010, she had said that she would give up acting in four years. But she turned out to be too good for the industry to let go of, again.

“I was very scared and emotional,” Jennylyn says of the time she found out she was pregnant. “My first reaction was fear that I might be sent away. But my mom was very open-minded.

Then, my [biological] father died when Jazz was born. But I had the support system of my mom and my friends—they covered everything I needed.”

“Wala naman yung kwenta,” Lydia scoffs when asked about the contribution of Jazz’s father. “Kamukha pa naman nya!” With the baby daddy ostensibly out of the picture, Jennylyn learned how to cope on her own. “Nung una, medyo mahirap. But when I got the

rhythm and got used to it, kaya naman pala.” Her first priority was to secure her son’s early educational future, after discovering that he had a speech delay at the age of one year and three months, and knowing that therapy and special schools were very costly.

Though Jennylyn would go on to have a succession of publicized relationships, some with unsavory details, she makes sure to keep her son shielded from it all. She often brings Jazz along on shoots, and the boy is remarkably patient and well-behaved. Video games and iPads, the 21st-century nannies of most children, are verboten.

She says, “I want him to grow up knowing how to communicate and interact…maganda yung traditional.”

Jazz is growing up in a household of strong women, and there is nothing untraditional about that. From a grandmother who took on the role of a single mother to her abandoned niece, to a mother who overcame childhood trauma with love and forgiveness, Jazz is not short on role models, nor does he lack in any figureheads.

“Huwag muna mag-asawa, mawawala sa akin,” Lydia says wistfully of her daughter. “Until I die, magkasama pa rin kami.” And at 29, Jennylyn Mercado has found her rhythm. It is now the rest of the world who has to try and keep up.

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GANITO KAMI NOON, PAANO KAYO NGAYON? (1976)

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Family Guy In a time of fluid family structures, where factors other than biology can determine who “dad” is; and environments where there are one dad, no dad, a faraway dad, or multiple dads, all prove to be equally nurturing, we wonder— what is fatherhood today? Here, four fathers share their unique stories: on what the role means to them, how they learned to play it, and why it brings them insurmountable joy.

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21st Century Dad One doesn’t learn how to be a father; so much as one learns what kind of father he turns out to be.

BY CLINTON PALANCA

LAST YEAR, A CHINESE-FILIPINO BUSINESSMAN cooked dinner for his family and poisoned his wife and two daughters. After having made sure they were dead, he went upstairs, took a gun from the family safe, and shot himself. It was later revealed that despite appearances of a stable, upper-middle-class lifestyle, he was saddled with debt and had mortgaged the house several times over. His wife and children had known nothing about this situation.

A lot of people, including many fathers, think that fatherhood is about money. A good father is one who can support his family; a better one can take the family on trips to Japan, treat his wife to Fendi baguettes, and raise the children on organic food and the best math tutors. And if one has so much money that one family 82 E S Q U I R E J U N E 2 0 1 6

can’t spend it fast enough, then he starts a second one. By these standards, a father who is broke is a failed one; and it would be reprehensible to saddle one’s surviving family with debt, so best make sure there is no surviving family.

The modern family is a myth: not that it exists, but that it is modern. From the dawn of history the role of the father is one that has been constantly redefined. The mercantilist 19th century idea of father as a limitless source of funds, with women and children, especially female children, too delicate to be sullied by anything as crass as handling money except in the capacity of spending it ( just as he would never sully his hands with the actual day-to-day activity of raising children), is just one of the many ways the role has been understood. The sensitive, hands-on father, who takes equal responsibility in the travails of daily parenting such as changing nappies, the school run, and talking to teenagers about sex—is just another iteration of fatherhood, one that happens to be dominant in developed Western societies at the moment.

Fatherhood creates itself: one doesn’t learn how to be a father; so much as one learns what kind of father he turns out to be. All too often, it turns out to be different than what one imagined it to be. This was the case for me. I had always pictured myself as a father who was involved, caring, if slightly daft, gamely holding up that other half of the sky that women didn’t hold up. I learned early on that the thrill of successfully changing a baby’s diaper is a variable that decreases at an increasing rate, just as a baby’s poop gets exponentially more voluminous and aromatic. For all the talk of bonding and intimacy, babies don’t really care very much who does the changing, as long as it gets done.

Having children, in an ideal world, coincides with a period in a man’s life when he is stable in his career, and, apart from the necessary (though not all-encompassing) financial stability this

provides, it usually also means a more senior position from which he can pop out of the office to attend the school play, or take a few days off if the child is in the hospital. While this might be true for some, it was certainly not true for me, and I continue to do work that feels like a start-up while juggling writing commitments and trying to stay up-to-date with my academic field. Some days are so exhausting that after driving home from work, I set an alarm for 20 minutes and take a quick nap in the back seat of the car before heading into the house.

It’s not such a bad idea, really. Creating a membrane between work and home is a tip I’ve received and would pass on to prospective fathers. All the frustrations and grievances of work and driving through traffic must disappear without a trace the moment one walks through that door; and whoever said that children are their own reward, probably never had any. There is every chance that the kids will be full of sweetness and delight, and hugs and kisses when you come home—but there is an equal chance that they will be beating each other up or having a tantrum, or have already written their name with poo on the walls.

Fatherhood is hard work, physically and emotionally. But most of all, it’s a time-suck. I don’t mind saying this because most of the hobbies I enjoy—like hi-fi or photography or collecting fountain pens—are a time-suck, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable.

More than money, what children demand from you is time: lots of it, and not at your convenience. It’s usually just when you’ve taken an Ambien that someone catapults off the chandelier and needs to be driven to the emergency room. Or you’ve just dropped the needle on a new 180-gram vinyl, when a favorite stuffed rabbit goes missing and must be found (and it turns out that it’s just a game—the rabbit was in the microwave all along). For most fathers, I know that their deepest fantasies are not of steamy nights with lissome seductresses—they dream of a long weekend in a very quiet place with a damp towel over one’s forehead, and uninterrupted sleep.

But the good news about it being a time-suck is that you can’t make more money than you do, but you can always make more time.

The two, admittedly, are interrelated: you’ll always feel you could be using this time to make more money; and if you’ve got money, you can always buy someone else’s time to take care of the squishy drudge bits of raising children, or even more. And guess what? These children of parents who choose to delegate turn out perfectly fine, and love their parents as much as the ones who take on every role themselves. There is no surefire formula to ensure that your children are close to you or not, hold you in high regard, don’t marry losers, and turn out to be stable and upstanding members of society.

We’ve entered an awkward, in-between stage for fatherhood.

Stay-at-home dads don’t fit into their roles very well, and they feel emasculated and frustrated, partly because they’re still a minority in a patriarchal world, but also because the new roles have simply turned the old ones upside-down: women put on tailored suits and pants and go to work like men, and men try to be mothers. There is still so much work to be done, and I don’t know what it will look like, but one day, both fathers and mothers will be able to balance work and parenting in a way that is equal and comes naturally.

This fluidity and redefinition of roles becomes even more important now that the civilized world is recognizing same-sex marriages; and within a generation or two, it will become normal to ask whether your parents are of the same or different gender. Gay and lesbian couples might choose to adopt heteronormative roles, one partner being “father” and the other being “mother”; or they might choose not to. And the children will turn out differently, and that’s alright, because children have been turning out differently with every step-change in society’s norms and practices.

What it means to be a father, as well as fathers themselves, will adapt and evolve, because there will always be good fathers and bad ones, but no right or wrong ones. We’re all making it up as we go along. No one is as good a father as they thought they would be, but no one is as bad as they fear they are. Fatherhood feels like a job, and demands one’s time like a job, and competes for your attention like a job. But work just gets you a pile of money, or maybe not; while the other has no quantifiable returns. And that’s the beauty of it.

Clinton Palanca is the father of six-year-old Lucy and one-year-old William, and husband to Lourdes.

Santi There was no anger, resentment, or embarrassment.

Simply, we loved our son. So we focused on the “special” part of his “special needs.”

BY ADEL TAMANO

SANTI’S SMILE IS ELECTRIFYING—it lights up our home. But it has to be his “real” smile, brought on by something he finds funny, or because he’s happy. When you ask him to smile on cue, it looks a lot like a grimace. This is one of the symptoms of someone with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—they have trouble recognizing facial and emotional cues. Other symptoms are hypersensitivity to stimuli (sound or light), obsessions with routines or food, or arm flapping. As I understand it, people with ASD are hardwired differently, so they experience the world in a unique and often more challenging way. That’s why he can have very public blow-ups and tantrums. That’s why he has trouble learning and studying in a “normal” classroom setting. That’s why it’s a challenge for my wife, Weena, and I to plan for his future.

And yet, I find that I’m not really worried about it at all. It’s not that I’m being flippant or uncaring. But I believe in my son—that he will find his way to grow and thrive—and more important, I believe that God will take care of him. As a Muslim (a flawed one, but that’s a different story), one of my basic beliefs is that God will provide for our children. In fact, one of the first things outlawed by Islam in Arabia was the cruel tradition of burying children, particularly female babies, in the sand, when families believed that they did not have enough resources to sustain their communities. With Santi, I have seen God’s hand in providing resources so that we are able to give him the therapy, support, medicine, and education that he needs.

No one expects to have a child with special needs. Weena and I welcomed Santi into our lives 13 years ago without any idea he had ASD. It was Weena who initially noticed it—thankfully very early on— and she took the necessary steps to begin our journey of providing the support that Santi needed to grow and thrive. We accepted the reality, I think, with a great deal of courage. There was no anger, resentment, or embarrassment. Simply, we loved our son. So we focused on the “special” part of his “special needs,” and embraced Santi as the blessing that he is.

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That for me is the powerful learning in our journey with him.

His ASD has been a blessing for us. It has forced me, Weena, our son Mike, our circle of family, friends, and caregivers to focus—not on Santi per se, but to focus on creating an environment where he can prosper. It gave me and Weena the inspiration to strive in our careers. At the same time, it taught us how to prioritize our home life, so that we didn’t focus solely on career advancement, because supporting Santi demanded time and effort, and we couldn’t be absentee parents. It has made us save for the future instead of using our resources primarily on luxuries or travel.

And what a journey it has been so far. I remember over a decade ago, when Santi was almost three, my wife and I noticed that he still hadn’t mastered the skill of climbing the stairs. Both of us were worried that he might not ever be able to learn how to do it because of his autism. Would we be helping him up the stairs in his teens? As an adult? Then a couple of months ago, I watched him climb up the stage for his moving-up day, his graduation from his grade school.

The contrast of the memory, and how far he had come, was a sweet vindication of our belief in our son.

Sometimes, I get asked what our most difficult moment with Santi was, and honestly, the question stumps me. My belief is that parenthood isn’t meant to be easy because the stakes are so high. As a father, I know that my actions have repercussions in Santi’s and Mike’s lives that I can’t fathom. And with autism, there are always tough moments—tantrums (often in public), sometimes getting hit (much less now though, thankfully), and of course, crying and tears (sometimes Santi’s, and other times, my own). But I tend not to focus on the hardships—instead, I focus on the joys: like seeing

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Santi on his graduation day, or watching him dance (three years ago I think) at a school event, largely unassisted. These far outweigh the not-so-happy moments.

Santi has taught me authenticity and humility. I always tell people how lucky Santi is because he is so genuine—he has no guile, no desire to be popular, and no need to play politics. He will never steal, backbite, or intentionally hurt others. Using these standards, already he is far better than many people I know. Finally, again, as a Muslim, I believe that God does not give us any situation or challenge that we cannot bear. So I am supremely humbled by this thought: that God believes that I am the right man who deserves to be Santi’s father.

Adel Tamano is the father of 13-year-old Santi, 10-year-old Mike, and husband to Weena Kapunan.

Deliberate Dad When I was 34, I decided that it was finally time for me to have a baby girl and a baby boy.

BY JON-JON RUFINO

HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD YOU SPEND with your children? The natural answer is: as much as you can. Being with them is an absolute joy. That’s the biggest surprise for me as a parent of two four-year-olds.

When I finally decided to become a father six years ago, I assumed that it required years of hard work before they become adorable— you know, that cute inquisitive stage where they want to know what clouds are made of, or why sharks and dolphins look so similar. I had no idea that it was going to be fun from the beginning, which for me was a crazy long day in Manila, on June 17, 2012—Father’s Day. I was hosting a dinner at home when I got a call from my surrogate; she was headed to the hospital because of unexpected contractions.

Her gynecologist assured me a month prior that she was not to give birth until July, so we both assumed that the doctor would just give her something to relax the muscles, that maybe she’d just need bed rest for a day or two. She was only 34 weeks pregnant at that point.

She called back an hour later, saying that they were going to go through with it. I didn’t even get a chance to eat what I had prepared for dinner, and found myself quickly on a flight to San Francisco.

By the time I got to the hospital, all the messy work had been done. My twins were born. I gave them their first bottle of formula, mixed with the colostrum from my wonderful surrogate. The nurse taught me how to change their diapers, check their vitals, feed them and put them back in their Isolettes one at a time. I dare say it was easy, but it was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. My son even rewarded me with a smile on his first day out.

I hear some of my friends talk about how it all goes by so fast. And it’s true that there are some moments that I miss. Like when my daughter would insist that she be by my side all the time. (My son is still a little bit like that, but I have become replaceable to my daughter, I think.) Or

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the bird-like sounds they used to make before they could talk. (But I now realize that my son still does that when he laughs.)

I remember my parents and teachers complaining that I was an unending stream of “whys” when I was a grade-schooler, and I always looked forward to that phase with my children. Now that it has started, and I am so happy. Every night before they sleep, they ask me to tell them a story. My son always asks for one with Darth Vader or Batman, but my daughter will prod for the stories of my youth. She says, “Tell me the story about how you made me.” It’s a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but I am happy to divulge.

“When I was 34,” I begin, “I decided that it was finally time to for me to have a baby girl and a baby boy. So I went to the hospital, and with the help of a doctor and a lovely woman who gave a part of herself, I made the two of you. And then another woman agreed to carry you two in her tummy until you were ready to come out.” Never mind yet the part about it being a two-and-a-half-year-long process, with several failed attempts, and more than one surrogate.

I love answering their questions, and every day, things only get better.

I’m very grateful that I have parents who adore my kids, and are happy to take them any time they can. I’m lucky that I have great nannies, one of which has been with me since the start. Plus, I am in a relationship with someone who also loves my children.

People think that being a surrogate father is different from being one of the fathers who have their kids through good old consummation—but I see no difference. I feel that my hardships and my sources of joys are the same. Right now, I am struggling with a common problem: how to balance time with my children, and have enough time for myself. Family dinners were not a big deal when I was growing up. I ate with my parents less than once a day, yet I can’t say that it was very negative. Still, I strive to eat at least one meal a day my the kids. It’s perhaps my biggest struggle to balance my responsibility to them as a father with my own desires. It’s not so easy to turn down all the invitations of my friends for dinner, tennis, or trivia contests—which is one of my favorite hobbies. But I brought them into this world, and they are my responsibility.

I think that people of my generation who choose to be parents are being much more deliberate about how much time they spend with their kids, to the point that we have to be wary of becoming helicopter parents that strangle the creativity and individuality out of the children. But I don’t feel the need yet to hold back. I feel like I could be doing more. My kids just turned four, and it’s all been so much fun.

Jon-jon Rufino is the father of Lucian and Lilith, both four years old.

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The Parenthood As soon as I open Z’s Lifebook, I see the very first photograph of him: sitting on the floor with his chubby legs, his beautiful eyes, and with so much longing. I was so happy, I cried.

BY PEEJO PILAR

“WHY YES, YOUR HIGHNESS.” That’s what the village full of unbelievably attractive women answer when I ask them if this was the task that needed to be accomplished. I had just slayed a really big dragon. No sweat for a knight/paladin/warrior king. My dexterity and strength are OP and I always roll a 20.

As the damsels in distress approach me with open arms, I begin to hear a faint sound, slowly building up to a shrill cry. Suddenly I notice that the piercing noise is emanating from each of the maidens’ mouths, and in a split second, I’m awake lying on my bed.

I turn my head to the right and see my two-year-old son, Z, standing inside his crib, wailing for his bottle of milk. “Wow. It’s morning already?” I mumble to myself as my brain struggles to enumerate all the baby duties I need to do before heading to work.

As I look straight at the ceiling to sigh, I instead see comedian Michael McIntyre twiddling his fat fingers and nodding his head, squatting above me like a bangungot screaming, “I told you so! Get up! Get up!” Wow, that was one vivid dream.

I’m not trying to scare you. If you want to have kids, that’s great.

If you don’t, that’s perfectly fine too. For me and my wife, becoming a parent was always on our list of life to-dos. We just never realized how difficult it was going to be. After trying numerous times to conceive, and failing, we decided to try adopting.

This, in itself, was a quest worthy of a knight/king. It was a bit of an educational adventure. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is very helpful, and you can’t help but sympathize with the struggles they face in a country that has a society that frowns upon adoption and adopted children. We’ve seen it in movies, TV shows, and in tasteless jokes. “Si Cassandra ang kontrabida. Isa siyang ampon na galing sa blah-blah-blah” is what we so often see on those telenovelas or movies. It’s a stigma that the DSWD continues to fight against. There are thousands of kids waiting for somebody to love them. They’re in orphanages and in foster homes.

It’s not their fault that they became orphans.

But with adoption, a little bit of patience is required, as the social worker assigned to you presents you with paperwork, requirements, and the toughest part: the selection process. This could take months depending on the details and requirements you submit. Luckily, for us it was three weeks. I remember when my wife told me that the DSWD had found a match for us, and that the files were ready to view. She was out of town, so I grabbed a cab and headed to their office.

As I got out of the taxi, my heart was pounding harder and harder.

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led me to a corner of the office to review the Lifebook—a file they’ve made on the child that they’ve matched you with. It includes his or her background, medical history, photos, and everything else you might need to know. As soon as I opened Z’s Lifebook, I saw the very first photograph of him: sitting on the floor with his chubby legs, his beautiful eyes staring into the camera lens with so much longing. I couldn’t help myself and gave in to my emotions. I was so happy, I cried.

It’s been almost a year since then, and we’ve gone through countless dirty diapers, ounces of milk, injections, and checkups with the pediatrician. We’ve watched and screamed in terror as Z stuck his finger into an electric fan, licked every surface in the house, and decided that he is indestructible and a sofa luchador.

But it’s also been a year of looking at him in every adorable situation, the little baby speeches he gives at the doorway, every time he looks for “mommy,” those energetic dancing moves to Hi-5, every chubby step, and every cheek-to-cheek press. These are the moments that make you realize that you are indeed his father. That the two of you are his parents.

This has been an arduous road of discovery for me and my wife.

Obviously when Z acts up and bawls his lungs out, it can be a true test of patience as you figure out what’s wrong, and work to appease him.

Taking care of a child is a true test that’ll bond husband and wife. But if you weather the storm, that bond gets even stronger. You just have to keep helping each other. (Quick tip for husbands: Don’t wait for your wife to ask for help. If you see a situation, jump into it, and take control. I know it’s not that easy. But you’ll get the hang of it. Always remember, you and your wife are a team.)

Even today, just leaving the apartment to go to the park still feels like a bug-out plan during a zombie apocalypse. Taking care of a child is hard. Let’s not sugarcoat it, it is hella hard. But every time my son looks at us, and smiles with that impossibly adorable grin—that’s when I know that it’s all worth it.

Peejo Pilar has been learning how to be a dad to Z, two years old, for about a year now.

TAT LO N G TAO N G WA L A N G D I YO S ( 1976 )

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR FIRST NOVEL BECOMES AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF FILIPINO LITERATURE? YOU TAKE THAT AS A CUE TO START FINDING YOURSELF.

BY KRISTINE FONACIER PHOTOGRAPHS BY RENNELL SALUMBRE

ere is the story so far.

Miguel Syjuco, then 31, then a largely unpublished writer, won the second Man Asian Literary Prize given out in 2008. That year, he beat out Alfred A. Yuson, Ian Rosales Casocot, and Lakambini Sitoy, among other writers from elsewhere in the region. For writing what the judges believed to be the best unpublished novel in the English language written by an Asian, Syjuco won US$10,000 and instant fame for Ilustrado.

In 2010, on Man Asian’s fourth year, the purse tripled to US$30,000, at the same time that the prize was opened to published novels—“difficulty in finding talented unpublished authors” was cited as the reason for the changes. The 2012 Man Asian was the last, as the Man Group (a financial services company, in case you’re wondering, based in the UK but with interests in many parts of the world [and which, interestingly enough, started in the sugar industry; its fortune was guaranteed as early as 1784, when the company won the contract to supply the Royal Navy with its “daily tot” {a ration of rum given to sailors every day}, and which the company kept for hundreds of years, until the tradition was halted in 1970 {as you can imagine, the tots added up to a tidy portfolio}]) announced that it was pulling out its funding in order to concentrate on the far more well-known (read: prestigious) Man Booker Prize and the biennial Man Booker International Prize.

This has meant that: a) no other Filipino author has had the opportunity to win the prize, leaving Miguel Syjuco to be the only Filipino writer with the distinction for eternity, unless the prize resurrects; and b) there have been no other Cinderella stories quite like Miguel’s, especially since the unpublished-novels rule only lasted until 2010.

The following year, in fact, Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe was named to the short list.

And so Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado, finally published in 2010, became, as the respected academic Caroline Hau wrote, “arguably the first contemporary novel by a Filipino to have a global presence and impact”.

Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux picked up the rights for Ilustrado for the United States; Picador for the the UK, both in 2010. Hau also noted that the book “garnered rave reviews across the Atlantic,” was included in the New York Times’ “100 Notable Books of 2010”, and “was slated for translation into 13 languages before it had even been published.” Hau also noted that Ilustrado “received press coverage” in Australia and Canada. Today, there are no less than 20 editions of the book.

SO MIGUEL SYJUCO has become some sort of literary superstar.

While publishers continually grouse that Pinoys don’t like reading, no other market treats writers like rock stars as we do (see, for example, the reception accorded to Neil Gaiman or to Lang Leav). And so here is Miguel Syjuco, coming home periodically to grace literary festivals, and to give talks about Ilustrado, about his life as a writer, etc. Here he is, on his enviable Instagram feed—in between jetsetting, parkour, residencies, lectures—posing with high-school kids from ISM, who are clearly thrilled to have run into the author they were just studying in class.

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Syjuco fits the role perfectly. He’s a handsome guy. He’s urbane, elegant, and stylish in a way that puts to shame all the writers who make a virtue out of being seen only in their hoodies. His hair, once combed back in a perfect good-boy coif, has now grown out into a dashing, still-perfect mane.

He sports a goatee better than any Asian man has a right to. Frankly, he looks like he’s been grown in a vat specifically to play the part of Acclaimed International Writer perfectly.

It doesn’t hurt that he is, as a book publisher once gushed, “very charming, quite unlike many other writers.” (I paraphrase.)

And so here he is, at a talk at the University of Santo Tomas, at which he is the guest speaker for a forum titled Writing in Exile. The auditorium is full; much fuller than expected, in fact. I had managed to call to reserve a seat just an hour before, which turned out to be a lucky thing, because every seat was taken by the time I arrived. “…do you know who you’re voting for?” he asks the audience, and the audience murmurs its reply. “You’re lucky,” he continues. His voice is soothing, his tone measured, and he speaks with that kind of softness that registers equally as gentleness and menace. He sounds a bit like Petyr Baelish, I decide. I spy a copy of Ilustrado on every third person in the room; the guy seated next to me has his copy wrapped lovingly in thick plastic wrap.

It’s no surprise that Syjuco has the audience eating out of his hand. The topics swing from Ilustrado to postmodernism to his struggles as a writer to politics and morals, and throughout it all the audience is clearly in love with him. He doesn’t seem to do funny, but he is charming enough to get the room to chuckle appreciatively.

At the end of the talk, after all the questions are asked, the moderator announces that the author will be signing copies of Ilustrado. A line forms, and it stretches all the way from the stage to the very back of the auditorium. Syjuco had mentioned somewhere during the talk that Ilustrado still sold best on home turf, even if it was written by an expat, with an expat perspective and expat characters. Even if it had won the Man Asian Prize, whose stated goal was to “significantly raise international awareness and appreciation of Asian literature.” This audience seems to prove that claim: In line, everyone appears to be carrying well-worn, much-loved copies; there are no uncreased copies that might look as if they were bought specifically for the occasion.

Over to one side of the stage, some of the professors from the university’s English department have gathered to wait for the line to thin out and escort their guest to the waiting reception afterwards. They’re pleasantly surprised at the turnout and with the discussion; Professor Hidalgo remembers how far Syjuco has come from being that young upstart who hadn’t shown up for the interviews for a coveted spot at a writers’ workshop. She remembers the audacious manuscript he’d turned in as an entry for a literary prize. Who knew, everyone seems to be saying. Who knew?

Syjuco himself understands their surprise. In an interview with Time, after his first post-Man Asian visit home, he had said: “I saw friends who I haven’t seen in a decade, in many cases... I saw all these teachers who, quite rightly, are surprised that I ever did something, got anywhere with my life.”

Full disclosure: I was passing acquaintances with the author when we were in university, and then again in the swamp of post-collegiate life. I didn’t know him as “Miguel Syjuco,” since he went by the nickname “Chuck.”

Now, when your nickname is Chuck, it makes it easy for the world to append adjectives to your name. Chuck was not particularly likeable, and surrounded as he was by other young men who were not particularly imaginative, one can easily surmise what name he was called behind his back. Even then, he wanted to be a writer, but it was easy to dismiss Chuck: He was too good-looking, he was too rich, he wrote too little, his writing was too naïve. I have a memory of a common friend who essentially told Chuck that his good looks were forever going to stand in his way.

Other things happened. In the gold-rush days of early Internet, Chuck was able to make a tidy little sum selling off a site that he’d built. He fell in love, he moved away. To everyone else, it looked like Good Luck Chuck was going to be a more fitting nickname. To be honest, it still wasn’t easy to

take the handsome playboy seriously, and when Man Asian came calling, it just seemed like yet another thing in a long series of irritatingly lucky breaks. The little fucker even looked amazing in his tux when he accepted the award.

NOW, ABOUT ILUSTRADO. Even Syjuco himself calls it an “infuriating” book, which it is. To some readers, at least (myself included). “I’ve gathered from their reviews and comments that they find it too open-ended, too fragmented, too confusing. They call it, pejoratively, po-mo—even if I don’t consider it at all postmodern in its sensibility,” Miguel e-mails me. “For example, one commenter on Facebook recently complained: ‘To have it start with a mystery and not have it solved?’ While another reader on Amazon said it was a mess, and that they didn’t get halfway in finishing it.”

And then there’s a mixed review The Guardian gave in 2010: “Many if not most of the narrative mechanisms of this first novel don’t actually work, but it’s hard to quarrel with the judges who awarded it the Man Asian literary prize.” It goes on to say, “The pleasures of Ilustrado are not in the rather creaky evocations of the past nor in a rhetoric that grows increasingly sententious as the book goes on, but in its sophisticated and seductive evocation of modern Manila.”

Other blurbs of note: “If you’ve never read a novel about the Philippines, then read Ilustrado.

If you’re dismayed at how few books are written and published by Filipinos, then buy twenty copies.” —Grace Talusan, The Rumpus “Ilustrado is an exuberant, complex, and fascinating ride through 150 years of Philippine history.” —Grace Talusan, The Rumpus “But the scope and ambitions of Ilustrado suggest that the novel was written not simply for an international audience as part of the author’s mission to establish himself as an international writer. It is, more properly, a Philippine contribution to what Goethe calls ‘world literature’ (Garlitos 2008), one that, Janus-faced, is meant for both international and domestic readerships (Colbert 2008) and must perforce juggle issues and questions that concern not only the ‘world republic of letters’ (Casanova 2004) but also the community of readers who call themselves Filipinos.’” —Caroline Hau “An unruly and energising novel, filled with symmetries and echoes that only become apparent in its closing pages, Ilustrado pushes readers into considering matters of authenticity, identity and belonging.” —Angel Gurria-Quintana, Financial Times “It is certainly an extraordinary debut, at once flashy and substantial, brightly charming and quietly resistant to its own wattage. (...) Miguel Syjuco has worked out, in a sense, the project for a new kind of Asian identity, one that can simultaneously sort through the messes of the colonial past while staying alert to our emerged century of almost too easy East/West flow and too many realignments of formerly solid borders.

More remarkably, he has done so in an exuberant, funny novel that neither takes its grand ambitions too seriously, nor pretends to be measuring itself by any less a scale of intent.” —Charles Foran, Globe & Mail

“Syjuco is a writer already touched by greatness, but his truly uncommon gifts delight all the more when they are permitted to emerge subtly, without overture. But this is a remarkably impressive and utterly persuasive novel.” —Joseph O’Connor, The Guardian “It is a most cerebral novel that dares to reflect the Philippines and Filipinos at so many levels and dimensions. Through virtuoso use of language and a dazzling array of fictional techniques, it achieves all of its lofty objectives.” —Antonio A. Hidalgo, Philippine Daily Inquirer “Not everything works: Ilustrado takes on two of the challenges that bedevil young novelists—how to smooth net-speak into prose, and how to write a good scene set in a nightclub—and fails at both…But spots of rawness in such an engaging first novel indicate how good Syjuco’s next books could be.”—Ben Jeffrey, Times Literary Supplement

SOMETHING HAPPENED to Miguel Syjuco while he was away. For the fictional Miguel Syjuco, it was the death of his mentor, and his subsequent return to the Philippines that forces him to confront, to search, and to question.

For the author Miguel Syjuco—after Ilustrado, after the award, after the fame—“where it all began,” he writes in an e-mail, “pulling me from my largely apolitical public life—which was focused mostly on the quiet life of literary fiction and its long-game political possibilities” was plagiarism. Not his, but Senator Tito Sotto’s.

A quick refresher course on the controversy: already on the losing side of the debates in Congress about the Reproductive Health Bill (now law),

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Sen. Sotto was found to have lifted entire paragraphs of his speech from a blog, and was called out by independent writers online. The senator denied wrongdoing. Syjuco, “more incensed by Sotto’s haughty denial than by the plagiarism,” went further and turned up more instances of plagiarism.

And worse, Sotto had plagiarized from three different blogs, all from reproductive health advocates who would’ve shuddered at the senator’s intent to quash the RH Bill.

Already vocal on social media, Syjuco went on to write a long piece for Rappler: “I, for one, was furious the senator had not only stolen words, but robbed them of their meaning, twisting the intent of the plagiarized authors to fit his purposes. I felt the untimely death of intellectual integrity was worth weeping over, ostentatiously, in public, because it’s the heart of public discourse.”

It was an impassioned screed, and sometimes naughty, too, as Syjuco took absolute joy in using prophylactic imagery to rail against the anti-RH senator and his minions. He was also right; in between calling Sen. Sotto “a liar and a thief” who “resembles a foot,” and Sotto’s aide Hector Villacorta “smegma,” he made this point: “Plagiarism may be Sotto’s peccadillo, but his second and greatest sin is arrogant impunity—the sort we see when public officials believe themselves above the law.” Sotto has still, to date, refused to acknowledge that he committed plagiarism.

But the genie was already out of the bottle. Syjuco seemed reborn in this new role, taking up arms in the fight for the RH Law, and then referencing his feud with the senator when he delivered a talk about censorship at a literary festival in Kuala Lumpur. Last year, Syjuco was among the writers published in the “New Asia Now” edition of the Australian Griffith Review. His essay, “Beating Dickheads,” took names (Marcos, Enrile, Joseph and Jinggoy Estrada, Arroyo, Jalosjos, Bacani, Villegas, Aquino, Binay, Duterte, Roxas, Sotto, “the list goes on.”) and kicked ass.

WE MEET FOR LUNCH at the Manila Polo Club because, Miguel Syjuco says, “I love feeling the irony here.” The obvious irony, of course, being the very fact of existence of a polo club in the middle of urban Makati.

The less obvious irony being, he confides, the fact that he’s a penniless writer enjoying the very exclusive privileges of the polo club. “Broke” is highly relative, of course, and I note with bemusement that being poor, for Good Luck Chuck, does not preclude wearing a Rolex, for example, or for renting out one of the polo club’s ultra-exclusive residential units for the few months that he’s back home.

And yet he’s very candid about his financial struggles, going into uncomfortable detail about his having to take odd jobs (as bartender, lab rat, eBay merchant, etc.) in between the more cushy gigs as visiting professor, writing fellow, and even research associate at Esquire in New York (David Granger complimented his shirt in an elevator, once). Let’s give him this: that he did sacrifice a whole lot in the pursuit of a writing life—he left the country, he left his family and his friends, and he allowed himself to be completely cut off from the family fortune, if not access to a sibling’s account at the Polo Club.

At the same time, he’s always had to acknowledge the fact that he’s been incredibly privileged all his life. “I’ve been very lucky my entire life,” he says to me, which is shorthand for what he’d told the UST audience the week before: “I’ve been getting this my entire life. Coño kid. Mestizo. That’s

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not my fault. That’s how I was born. That doesn’t change my love for the country, that doesn’t change how I want to help. It was the same thing, when I went to Ateneo and hung out with UP writers, I’d be asked things like, ‘How can you write? You don’t know how it is to suffer.’ Or ‘You don’t know what it is to be Filipino.’ Well, what am I if not Filipino? It’s where I was born, it’s where I was raised, it’s who I am.”

That said, this time he intends to put down roots in the Philippines.

Though he is soon off to New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus as a visiting professor, he will be calling Manila home for the first time since he left, back in 2001. His return was curiously timed to coincide with the national elections—is this by design, considering what seems to be his newfound political conscience? Or is it as some people have speculated, for his father, who had tried to join the presidential race? “Hm,” the son pauses. “I think I’ve moved beyond my father in my own motivations and my own identity—I think that’s incredibly clear,” he says, and then: “I think it speaks to the culture we live in that people wonder if I’m connected with him at all. The answer is, not at all.”

The reasons, he says, for his return are more personal; and aside from acknowledging that he’s just emerging, happily, from a rather complicated time in his life, the other pressing reason for his return is his second book. The novel, I Was the President’s Mistress!! follows one of the minor characters from Ilustrado, and it sounds like it’s going to be just as adventurous and as infuriating as its predecessor. Taking the form of a celebrity tell-all, “it’s a series of transcripts—of her, of her 12 lovers—as she came from this very humble background of being a GI baby until she was finally the mistress of the most powerful man in the country.” The work has been completed, thanks to a couple of fellowships, but his editor has demanded a few revisions, which he is now working on, for publication maybe in 2017. He’s presented the manuscript at Radcliffe, and a video of his reading comes with this caption: “[Syjuco] examines different facets of power and how they comingle, conflict, and contradict. Through satire and parody, Syjuco hopes to examine his own biases, justifications, and limitations as a male writer to better understand gender politics in developing societies.” The title to the video clip announces, “I Was the President’s Mistress!!—a Novel About Sex, Power, and Corruption in the Third World.”

When I tell him that perhaps his third novel is the one to watch, he replies that he’s conceptualized it, and indeed has a proposal written out.

He very generously offers to e-mail me the document, on the agreement, of course, that it remain confidential. (He did e-mail it to me, and it will remain confidential. But I think I’m allowed to say that the work is very political, and that the proposal contains this line: “This novel will be very ambitious…”)

We cover a lot of ground during our conversation, and somewhere during our talk, he raises this point: that no one has produced Filipino literature from “the perspective of the elite.” For two hours, I’d been racking my brains for an example, but he may be right—I can’t think of any, other than Ilustrado. “I don’t know anybody who writes about these things, about the Polo Club, about Forbes Park…” he trails off.

Our discussion dwindles, and Miguel walks me to the parking lot, making a slight detour to look at the Polo Club’s reading room. “The only place here where they don’t ask for your members’ ID,” he chuckles. He sees me off at the parking lot, and walks across the grounds—where, he says, he likes to take off his shoes and feel the freshly cut grass under his feet as he walks to his townhouse.

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REAL LIFE VERSUS FANTASY

One of the biggest TV stars of our time, thanks to Game of Thrones, finds himself navigating the most mystical world of them all: real life

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a bit?” Certainly rare words to come from a man approaching his fifties.

Add that he has film-star looks, and has shot intimate scenes with some of Hollywood’s sexiest women, including Kate Upton and Cameron Diaz (in the 2014 romcom, The Other Woman) as well as Lena Headey, his onscreen sister in GoT (which is another story), and it would be easy for Nikolaj to be, well, a bit of a diva about photoshoots, not having the biggest room in the hotel, or being approached by fans when it’s late and he just wants to go to bed. But the actor couldn’t be further from the Hollywood archetype. Prior to the shoot, he’s dressed in grey jeans, white T-shirt and grey suede lace-ups (from “some Danish or Swedish brand, I haven’t a clue”) and his navy stripy H&M socks are as flashy as he gets.

As he peers out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the emerging city below, he asks the usual first-timer questions. “How tall is the Burj Khalifa?”

“What’s that?” (It’s the Dubai Mall). “What’s this Friday brunch all about?”

“What do people do here?” He’s naturally strapping, 6’1”, with broad shoulders and impressive calves from playing lots of football over the years, but he’s not in the least bit intimidating. Package all that in a wellcut suit and you have the perfect Esquire man.

The fashion industry is yet another strange world this actor seems to have been thrown into of late. He just did an editorial alongside supermodel Joan Smalls for US Vogue magazine, shot by the fashion photographers behind many iconic shots, Mert & Marcus. “It was fun, everyone was lovely but there was definitely a feeling of ‘Ooooh this is Vogue’, he laughs, with ‘Vogue’ said in a mock-scared whisper. “And there were, like, a million people on set; it was insane”. Last year, Nikolaj also found himself invited to the MET Gala for the first time, an annual fundraiser for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York, and undoubtedly one of fashion’s most prestigious events. He jokes about being baffled by the fact that he was the only person eating. “The lamb was incredible,” he says. He went again this year, and, for the record, he wore Zegna and, yes, he once again ate what was put before him.

nikolaj

HAS BEEN IN DUBAI FOR APPROXIMATELY 90 MINUTES. It’s midnight, he’s checking into the Sofitel in Downtown Dubai and two women are having a debate as to if it’s really “him” or not. After a few moments, one of them walks over and asks if he is “that guy from the show.” Nikolaj politely tells them that, yes, he is indeed. She retreats to relay this information to her friend, who evidently remains unconvinced. So while the check-in process continues, the lady re-approaches with hastily Googled images of the actor on her iPhone, just to confirm that her instincts are right.

“I didn’t care if she knew it was me or not,” he laughs, telling me the story the following morning. “I wasn’t going to try and convince her. It was just funny that she was comparing the images on her phone to my face.”

The 45-year-old Danish actor is certainly in an odd place in the world, a realm where encounters such as this are far from rare.

This is mostly due to his participation in Game of Thrones, in which he plays Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, or more unkindly referred to as the Kingslayer. This leading role in the HBO adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels, makes him one of the most famous faces on the planet. But if you’re not one of the 8.1 million people who have been hooked on one of the most popular TV shows to ever hit screens, then, yes, you might need convincing that the friendly, albeit handsomely chiselled, face in front of you is that of a superstar.

We’re on location for our cover shoot, at the plush, 2,615 sq ft royal suite of the same hotel in which he’s staying. He looks around admiringly at the expansive space, comparing it to his more modest room on a different floor and jokes that he’ll be having words with the hotel manager about an upgrade. As we sort through different outfits for the morning, a stylist gets to work on a haircut; he’s been back-to-back with press and filming up until his arrival in Dubai for The Middle East Film & Comic Con and hasn’t had time. “Just make me look cool, man,” he answers when she asks what he’s after. “I’ve got really thick hair, so maybe we could thin it out

costerwaldau

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THE COMPANY HE FINDS HIMSELF IN THESE DAYS is all a far cry from the small town Tybjerg, population of just 40 people, outside of Rudkøbing, Denmark, where he was born. Nikolaj and his two sisters were mainly brought up by their librarian mother, Hanne Søborg Coster, after her and Nikolaj’s father, Jørgen Oscar Fritzer Waldau, divorced when they were young. Nikolaj enrolled at the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance in 1989, where he studied for four years, and his first role after graduating, in the 1994 Danish thriller Nightwatch, immediately threw the young actor into the limelight in his native land.

“It was a really big hit, so I immediately became well-known, which was not necessarily a good thing, because then you are known for that one thing,” he reminisces. Thankfully, he was self-aware enough to realise the dangers that this early flush of fame posed to his longer term prospects. “There’s nothing worse than a young kid who thinks he’s really successful, it’s infuriating, so I moved to London afterwards to pursue my career, just get other work and experience other stuff.” He says that years later he worked with Ewan McGregor, who starred in the 1997 Hollywood remake of Nightwatch. It didn’t have the same impact, or success that the Danish original had. “Ewan asked me if I’d seen it. I hadn’t, so he made me promise to never watch it,” he grins.

Nikolaj continued to book small roles—a supporting part in Enigma, Tom Stoppard’s 2001 screenplay starring Kate Winslet, and then a year later his first Hollywood role, in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, playing Gordon, a Medal of Honor recipient. In fact, ever since the actor got that first job in 1994, he’s added two or three movies to his CV every year, working with Ridley Scott again in 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven. Even now, when he’s not working on GoT (which occupies him up to five months a year), he’s managed to squeeze in a movie or two to keep his creative juices flowing. Earlier this year he starred alongside Gerard Butler in action fantasy movie, Gods of Egypt. It got panned, but that was probably more the studio’s lack of foresight rather than Nikolaj’s performance. The story hadn’t come from a series of books that already had a strong teen following, which was key to the success of Lionsgate’s other franchises, Hunger Games and Divergent.

PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER WATCHED Game of Thrones, tend to dismiss the show because it belongs to the fantasy genre. So just to clear up a few misconceptions, yes, the series does contain dragons, witches, and magic, but it has received enormous critical praise, not least for the quality of the cast and the hard truths it reveals about human nature.

Nikolaj’s performances have also been recognized and applauded. His character is extremely complex and it has taken a deft hand to play the role. So, while he initially comes across as villainous and immoral, having done some pretty despicable things (murder, rape and incest to name but a few), he’s somehow become likeable as the seasons have progressed.

Unbelievably, for a character who was first seen attempting to murder a child who had just seen him in flagrante with his own sister, he is now seen more as a tragic hero with a good heart. This, of course, is largely thanks to Nikolaj’s sensitive portrayal of Jaime Lannister, and his ability to spark off fellow cast members, which frequently leads to some of the most humorous, emotional and exciting scenes in the show—and that’s up against some pretty strong competition.

Unbelievably, his wife of 18 years, Greenlandic star Nukâka, has still yet to watch an episode. “She’s like, ‘Oh I don’t know if it’s for me!’” he laughs. “I’m not going to force her to watch it. I don’t really care, it’s just my job. And to be honest, if I hadn’t been in it, maybe I wouldn’t have watched it. I mean, I probably would have done, but I would have had that same ‘Erm, I’m not sure if this is for me…’”

The couple are still based in Denmark, just north of Copenhagen in a house they share with their two teenage daughters, 16-year-old Filippa and 13-year-old Safina. He’s thought of moving the family to LA, but says he loves his home country, plus “the schools are really good.” He jokes that it’s his daughters who keep him in the loop when a fake Facebook or Instagram page pops up pretending to be him. He’s on Twitter, but that’s it. At this point in his career, there’s not a lot more he needs to do to boost his profile.

Nevertheless, he does have publicity commitments to Game of Thrones, hence the appearance at Comic Con. We’re backstage at the event now, just the two of us sitting in the private Royal Green Room, along with a policeman (the royal treatment wasn’t entirely planned, but it’s a welcome reprieve from the melée). Having run out of time on our photoshoot, Nikolaj has given us his only free hour in the day to come and chat while he eats his lunch. There are swarms of fans outside, each wanting a selfie, destined, no doubt, to pop up on social media. It’s unrelenting and repetitive, but when he does re-emerge, he’ll be as accommodating as possible.

“I always feel for the younger cast members in Game of Thrones,” he says of the pressures that come with being in such a popular show.

“They’re really clever and smart. If you look at Sophie Turner [aged 20, plays Sansa Stark] and Maisie Williams [19, plays Arya Stark], they were kids when they started [in 2011] and now they’re these international celebrities and stars,” he says between bites of raw salmon. “They have a lot of social media followers and they’re living that life… For anyone who’s very young, and gets a lot of attention and a lot of money, it must not be an easy thing to navigate… I’m not sure I would have been able to cope with it like they have done.”

IF EVERYTHING GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN, they’ll all have to cope for a while longer yet. The show is expected to run through to an eighth season at the very least, meaning it won’t bow out until 2018 at the earliest, though Jaime Lannister, like many other characters in the show, could be written out before then. He’s not allowed to give us any spoilers about his fate in the current season, so we don’t know when his postGame of Thrones life will begin. But he has been dabbling in writing and producing small projects and hopes to step behind the camera a bit more in the future. When the series first aired, Nikolaj found himself being offered a lot of parts playing knights. Now, as the world has become more familiar with his acting skills, he’s being offered more interesting scripts.

He just starred in and produced a small film over the Christmas holidays called 3 Things, shot in Denmark, and he has a writing partner in the UK. They’re working on a script and looking for financing.

“I’ve done a lot of movies, I’ve learned from a lot of great people, and I like to tell stories,” he says of his wish to develop his career beyond acting.

Is there any key advice he’s been given over the years that has helped?

“I think advice is cheap,” he replies. “You can only really learn by doing and making mistakes.” So, any mistakes? “Sometimes you can work with someone who really [messes] up and you are like, ‘Oh right, I’ll remember that. I shouldn’t do that, ever!’” He gives an example of a film he shot in England. “The producer came to the trailer and was like, ‘Does anyone need anything? Sniff, sniff, sniff… anyone?’ He was fired from the job, of course, and that’s the only time I’ve heard of the producer being let go because he was so high all the time.”

It’s approaching 4:00 p.m. and he’s got a signing session where 200plus people have turned up to meet him. He’s told that this allows for 20 seconds with each fan, which means the encounter goes something like this: “Hi, it’s really nice to mee… CLICK… okay, bye!” It’s another bizarre situation that he regularly finds himself in these days, but one that he takes in his stride. As he prepares to face the crowds outside, I think back to the beginning of our day, when we were talking about his first taste of fame after Nightwatch. He said the experience made him quickly realize that “fame is not about you, even though you might feel it; it’s about projection.” So he knows that, while he should respect the fans for whom the encounter will mean a lot, it doesn’t make him any better or any different. It is, as he says, not about him.

And with that, he walks out of the peaceful haven of his green room and back into the madness that is Game of Thrones mania. Like the fantasy world the show portrays, and the devotion his character inspires, it might not be based on anything real, but it really does feel that way sometimes.

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THE NEW ONE CHAMPIONSHIP HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP HAS BEEN CROWNED. FILIPINO-AMERICAN MIXED-MARTIAL ARTIST BRANDON VERA SPEAKS UP ABOUT THE PEAKS AND VALLEYS OF HIS FIGHTING LIFE, THE RISE OF ASIAN MMA, AND GROWING UP PINOY IN AMERICA.

BY KARL DE MESA PHOTOGRAPHS BY SONNY THAKUR

JUNE 2016 š ESQUIRE

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again. It begins with doubt, a nagging thought that he shouldn’t be here, that this should not be happening, something quickly brushed away as he engages in warm-ups and gets his hands wrapped and signed by officials.

IT COMES BACK almost twice as hard, minutes later. The seed of doubt balloons into a voice, a monologue of refusal speaking with his words: “Am I really going to get hurt again?

What the fuck am I doing? This is so stupid.

There’s gotta be a better way to make money.”

It’s the night of December 11, 2015 and Brandon Vera can’t shake the jitters on the eve of his title fight against Taiwanese striker Paul “Typhoon” Cheng. His concerns aren’t without merit. There’s been a last-minute change of opponents: British kickboxer Chi Lewis-Parry has been pulled because he’s failed to submit medical records or he’s withdrawn himself or he was unwilling to board the plane to Manila; so Vera is now facing Cheng on 72 hours’ notice.

Cheng is 6’3”, compared to Lewis-Parry’s towering 6’9”, but he outweighs Lewis-Parry by about 10 pounds. Cheng has also finished his fights by ground-and-pound, a method where a fighter lays out an opponent on his back and then basically pancakes his face with fists until the referee comes mercifully to his rescue.

For centuries, unarmed combat practitioners have sought to answer the question: which

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martial style is the best? It’s been a long, hard road to maturity for mixed-martial arts (MMA) as a sport, ever since the term was first used in 1993. But the road has led to this conclusion: a fighter must learn everything—the striking, clinching, and grappling arts—to truly be the best.

That cagefighters should look up to Bruce Lee as the godfather and early pioneer of modern mixed-martial arts is no surprise. While versed in traditional kung-fu styles during the development of his own Jeet Kune Do system, he encouraged students of combat to crosstrain, exhorting them to be well-rounded as espoused in his mantra: “Be like water.”

The ONE Fighting Championship is one of many around the world testifying to the popularity of MMA as sport and spectacle. It is also very lucrative business. In Asia, where ONE FC claims control of 90 percent of the market, the organization slings an attractive mission and vision: the development of MMA in Asia, and the search for the new Bruce Lee. In the prep room at the back of the Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena, the crowd is a beast that

fills 20,000 seats and craves the spectacle of a knockout. Vera strikes the pads and practices some grappling with his coaches, activities designed to at once fire up the kinetic memory of months of training and keep away these demons scratching at his door right now. Vera wouldn’t call it fear. “I always, always gets nervous before the walkout,” he says. “All of it stops when I get out to the arena and when the curtains part.”

Diddy’s version of Skylar Grey’s “Coming Home” blares from the PA system, and Vera walks out to howls of the audience, all doubt gone, the swagger back in his step, just another day at the office for a cagefighter. It’s time.

Later, courtesy of a thunderous head kick, Brandon “The Truth” Vera stands triumphant.

The belt he’s been pursuing since the start of his pro fighting career in 2002 is finally around his waist. It took just 26 seconds of the first round.

ive months later, I’m telling him about how the crowd responded to his win that night at ONE Championship 35: Spirit of Champions. That moment when Cheng collapsed from a left high kick, I was on my feet screaming at the cage along with the thousands watching. The MOA Arena makes for a poor coliseum, but that was what it must’ve felt like in the days of the gladiatorial games. The cries rival that of a Pentecostal church, the sound rises and rises. Elation is an understatement.

Vera laughs with both appreciation and irony. This 38-year-old man who walks around at 245 to 260 pounds, lays down the gold and leather belt and tells me that even with a knockout like that, people still complain.

“You know what? I still get irritated because people came up to me afterwards and said: hey, Brandon, next time can you make the fight last at least one minute? Tang ina mo, kayo na lang kaya lumaban,” he tells me in straight vernacular, with just enough California in it.

“Pilipinas, you have a champion now!” he said in that same fight. Not a bad upgrade in career for a fighter who found out he was being released from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in early 2014.

Vera is proof that an exit from the UFC isn’t the end of the world. Currently the premier fighting promotion company, the UFC, is responsible for cagefighting becoming a legitimate sport from something once dubbed human cockfighting. Fights now air on network TV, with MMA terminology and culture bleeding into pop vernacular. The UFC fetes its champs and big-name fighters like rock stars, rewarding them with purse bonuses that might rise in the millions (see: Conor McGregor) and enough

F

celebrity that they can parlay into movie careers (see: Ronda Rousey) beyond the octagon.

Vera started his pro career in 2002, competing in modest leagues until his impressive, successive wins netted him a UFC debut in 2006, where he continued his assault on the heavyweight division until he lost to Fabricio Werdum in 2008. He cut tremendous weight to make it to the Light Heavyweight division, and from there on his fight career became uneven. A cartographer might say the landscape of his fighting record (14-7-1) looks like a mountain range, with high peaks and deep valleys, and an underground river of woe where the current drags down the weak.

With Baybayin tattoos on his back and Polynesian tribal patterns inked across his shins and arms, Vera has always cut the image of the tribal warrior inside the cage. His victory dance in the early days looked like a cross between a headhunter’s jive and some mongrel form of AmBoy hip-hop. At one point, he confidently announced he would claim the heavyweight belt, and then drop down to the next division and claim that title, too.

After a string of four losses, one no contest, and only one win in his last six fights, Vera discovered that UFC’s initial contract extension offer in early 2014 was no longer up for negotiation. He had been released, but nobody from Zuffa, UFC’s parent company, had bothered to call. Vera found out about it through social media.

A few months later, having just signed with ONE Championship as a heavyweight, and on the eve of training camp for his debut fight against Ukraine’s Igor Subora, his wife of eight years called. She wanted a divorce.

randon Michael Vera was born to Ernesto Vera and an Italian-American mother, but raised by his Filipino stepmother, Amelia, in Norfolk, Virginia.

His family has roots in Tagkawayan, Quezon, and he visits relatives there and in Metro Manila regularly, on at least one trip to the Philippines a year. In 2007, because he was in the country so much, he was asked to train Richard Gutierrez for the TV show Kamandag.

Athletic at an early age, he went to Lake Taylor High School where he eventually got up to 200 pounds and wrestled at that weight, excelling so much that he scored a four-year athletic scholarship to Old Dominion University.

He only spent a bit over a year at Old Dominion, dropping out of college and earning the extreme displeasure of his Pinoy

family. Parents and relatives expressed their unhappiness by giving him the silent treatment.

Eventually he signed up with the US Air Force, where he joined the wrestling team and trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado. A

ow, Vera travels the world training fighters and basically telling people what it’s been like. His moniker “The Truth” has steadily grown into an image of a big brother, soothing, opinionated and brutally frank, a gentle giant role model. Who he is as The Truth is only very subtly different from the real Brandon Vera, and you can spot the difference only through long observation.

A day before the Global Rivals fight card, we dragged the hefty heavyweight belt from the Nobu Hotel in the upscale City of Dreams in Pasay to the gritty interiors of Safehouse MMA in Quezon Avenue, where the champ would give a short seminar for the benefit of a children’s orphanage. The belt was with us as is, with no case, not even a plastic bag to put it in. Nothing. Then again, with a 250-plus-pound Brandon Vera keeping it safe, I didn’t think anybody was going to mess with us. Still, I prayed our Uber would not break down.

Safehouse MMA had only one open window and it made the place moist as a sauna in the cruel April heat, despite all the running exhaust fans. Vera passed the belt to the gym’s owner for

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college, was back home nursing a broken wing.

“When I was growing up, even now and especially now that everybody complains about their job, about school, traffic, the car, the government. Yung Papa ko? Fucking guy never complained.” Brandon’s father owned a group of restaurants in the Hampton Roads metro area and would usually be first in and last out of the kitchen. “Not once, not once did he ever say he was tired. And if he’d ever say he was tired, he’d say, ‘Ha, pagod?

Ganito naman talaga ang buhay Pilipino, eh.’

So I don’t complain about anything, life’s trials and tribulations, all the good and all the bad? Kinakain ko na lang.”

Vera, by his definition, still doesn’t have a real job. He still vividly remembers the first time he saw MMA and thought about it as a viable career option. It was after his elbow injury that he had to take the time off, ruminating on what he might do next after he got back up to speed. “[I remember] I just got out of the Air Force and was sitting at my parent’s house with my little brother Junior—he’s the brainy Asian in our family—we were watching one of the early fights of Randy Couture in 1999 or 2000, and I asked my brother: ‘What d’ya think of that, Junior? He’s like, ‘Those motherfuckers be crazy, fuck that shit. But I’ll watch it all day.’

And I remember after he said that, I thought to myself: yeah, I’m gonna try that shit!’ I wanna see what that’s like!” And he did.

severe injury cut his military wrestling career short in 1999. Most of the ligaments in his right elbow had been torn.

Brandon, the prodigal who wouldn’t go to

safekeeping and people were quickly lugging it around, taking selfies with it like it was their own trophy. Like Brandon Vera, the Filipino MMA fans considered this championship public property. The belt and Brandon belonged to them—this 6’2”-tall, flip-flop-wearing, chicken adobo-cooking, Divisoria-visiting, cauliflowereared Fil-American who cursed in the vernacular and joked like one of the kanto boys.

The seminar lasted around two hours longer than usual, people who wanted pictures and signatures seemed almost endless.

Brandon didn’t complain once. “Ganito talaga.

This is the life of a Filipino champ, right?” he told me when everybody had left; the people need their champion.

“I’m a big guy, bald head, tattoos,” Vera shrugs. “If you don’t know me you’ll probably cross the street to avoid me. And then if I come up to you and smile and I shake your hand, you’ll go, ‘What the fuck?’ Immediately your brain switches from ‘Oh my God’ to ‘What is this guy about?’”

He’s quite aware of the cognitive dissonance and revels in it. For some, seeing a cagefight where people try to KO or strangle each other to win still makes them assume it must be a sport made up of brutes and savages (and yet some still perceive boxing, American football, and rugby as less violent, despite the statistical difference in injury and mortality), appealing only to similar brutes and savages.

People who meet Mr. Nice Guy Brandon can’t fathom why he’s kind and accommodating, and then meet other MMA stars of similar disposition; it’s an exclusivity for people who study the combat arts: the more you train in self-defense, the less your desire to hurt.

Exactly what, as a corollary, makes Vera a great ambassador for MMA.

Being champ and looking forward to a title defense later in 2016 have given Vera time to meditate, to lay down his swords and enjoy a respite from the constant warfare of fighting life. He’s almost divorced and technically single (the legal term is bifurcation, he explains), he’s setting up a local franchise for his US Alliance MMA gym, working on dual citizenship, and he’s just signed with the Virtual Playground Entertainment group for showbiz projects.

A fan on the standing area waves to him and excitedly calls out his name. He excuses himself again. He takes a selfie and stays and talks to

the other fans who also want selfies. The life of a champion. Why complain?

The night before, after the seminar at Safehouse MMA, two women seated outside the Max’s restaurant had spotted Vera trudging to the waiting Uber. He was exhausted and his steps weighed down by the championship belt, easily clocking 40 pounds. The women cried out his name.

He looked back, smiled, and waved.

They waved back. “I’ve got to go home,” he said. “Uwi na ko!” They tell him to take care: “Ingat ka, champ!”

want to be the standard for the new gentleman. I want that to be my legacy,” Vera says. We’re inside the MOA arena waiting for the main card to start and he’s been pacing and mouthing two lines of standupper for the last 10 minutes, clearly having difficulty with nonspontaneous speeches. “I really want to set a standard of manhood.”

He excuses himself and goes up to the middle of the cage to announce the start of the main card. As he steps down, the arena goes dark and pyrotechnics explode, the spectacle of a bygone era in MMA brought back by a fledgling company.

He takes his seat next to me: “My message to the world is: everyone be genuinely nice to each other. Help somebody when you can and make someone smile. I am against any kind of violence on the street. Unless you get paid for it. Be kind.”

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WHAT I’VE LEARNED

RODRIGO DUTERTE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES Q U OT E S F RO M T H E CA M PA I G N T R A I L

Government of the people? Maybe. Government by the people?

Ordinaryong tao lang ako, ayaw kong mapahiya. Kaya ‘pag sinabi kong

Maybe. Pero putangina itong gobyerno, it is not for the people.

I have promised you something and if you know me, I will really do it. I will do it even if I lose my life, my honor, and even the presidency.

Alam mo tayo, magkaiba ang tribo. May Tausug, Maranao, Tagalog, Bicolano, Ilocano. Alam mo magkaiba-iba ang dialect natin, magkaiba-iba ang kultura, even the idiosyncracies. But now what remains to hold us together is itong Philippine flag.

The written manifestation of the flag is the Constitution. I hope that everybody would remain loyal to that flag kasi pag hindi, you start to fuck it, gagamitin niyo ‘yung pera at hayaan ninyo kami in our poverty there, ni wala kaming enough resources after giving all our money to you and you send us pittance at magulo, you leave to us a serious problem of maybe a fractured island.

huminto kayo, huminto kayo. I have one word for all of government dito sa Pilipinas: stop. S-T-O-P. Just stop. Just obey the law.

Wala akong hangarin except my country… I pray to God that the nation will be enlightened by His grace and you can choose the leader.

I’m a very impatient man. Wala nga ako ipagyabang eh.

Ipagyabang ko trabaho lang. I never did any greatness. Wala akong recognition sa eskwela hanggang high school, 75 lang lahat. Okay lang yan. Pero noong nag-abogado ako, medyo matino na ako. And I have learned so much reason, but I will not dwell into so much about the niceties of life.

I do not expect a clean government. Sometimes I’m castigated for just being brutal and honest. It will be a bloody war. And for those who are already there, they would never, ever want to go back to where they came from. Malabo ‘yung reformation.

Do not destroy this country because this is my native land.

Huwag na tayo magbolahan. Ang problema, kasi we want to appear good before the world. Yan ang mahirap. Eh, di magprangkahan na lang tayo para maintindihan natin itong problema na ito.

How many years have you been married? Thirty years? Tapos sabihin mo, ‘We still can make it. We do it every day.’ Puntagina, kabulador mo. Leche.

That’s the language. Sabi nila gutter. Di ako gutter. Nagsasabi ako ng totoo. I am not into euphemisms.

I am a son of a teacher. I know the importance of education, and I also know the many challenges of public school teachers face.

I believe that [for] our people and the Philippines , the greatest resource would be education, and it should be number one.

[We cannot get] out of poverty unless we educate the people.

The problem is we have so many problems to solve.

Implementation is the key.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JASON QUIBILAN

But one thing I can assure you as I have done before, and which

I am up to, I said, if you just listen to my epithets, my curses, and my bad words, look [behind me], so you’ll see the Filipino on bended knees, hungry and very mad at this country for doing nothing.

All that I can say is, I have many plans. I can even copy the plans of my good friends here, Grace and Ma’am Miriam. For after all, it is a product of intellect which I can use. Sanay naman akong mangopya. Grade 1, nagkokopya na po ako.

The war in Mindanao runs deep. You know, this may sound funny to you, but when Magellan landed in Leyte, Islam was already planted firmly in Mindanao because they belonged to a different [sultanate]. Ang makakaintindi lang ‘yong Sabah papuntang Malaysia. But you know, the conquerors and the Americans and the Spaniards, kinuha nila ang Mindanao which was already Islam. Kaya ‘nung pumunta ’yong mga sundalo ng Espanyol pati Amerikano, giyera talaga. We have to talk and we have to correct the historical injustice.

Takot ka mamatay, takot kang pumatay, wag kang mag-Presidente.

It’s time to heal.

I am just an ordinary citizen. I do not have the credentials of a summa cum laude. I was not even an honor [student] during my time.

You know, matagal ko nang ambisyon yan na maging hero rin ako.

That is what I am. You are you. I am I. So ‘yun ang identity ko dito sa mundong to.

[When my family moved] to Davao 1948, it was a long and winding road of sacrifice. Ang likod ng Ateneo [de Davao] used

to be woodlands. My father never realized na yung may tubig eh woodland. May mga titulo. And he built a house. Na-demolish yun…And if I close my eyes and remember it like this, then I inhale, I can still smell the swamp.

If you want to read my mind, forget about the laws of men, forget the laws of organizations, [the] United Nations. Let’s just concentrate on one. I’ll leave you to imagine the eternal equation of justice ng Diyos: karma.

Quotes taken from transcripts of President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte’s speeches in Tondo on February 9; in Los Baños, March 11; in Makati, on April 27; and in the debates in Cagayan de Oro, February 21 and in Pangasinan, April 24.

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just the two of us SURE, YOU CAN GO FULL SCHLUB IN BEAT-UP CLOTHES THAT ARE TWO WASHES AWAY FROM DECAY WHEN AT HOME. OR YOU CAN MAKE A CHOICE TO WEAR QUALITY PIECES THAT ARE SIMPLE AND RELAXED BUT NEVERTHELESS APPEAR PROPER AND REFINED. HERE, FOOTBALL ANALYST AND FATHER MIKEE CARRION SHOWS HIS (TOTALLY REAL) SON HOW TO MASTER THE ART OF DRESSING DOWN AND DRESSING WELL.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARTU NEPOMUCENO STYLING BY CLIFFORD OLANDAY ART DIRECTION BY PAUL VILLARIBA

ME AND MINI-ME Dad Tip No. 45: We are of the position that dressing you and your child in similar clothes (or what moms call twinning) is okay. You might as well do it now (with tasteful and classic pieces, of course) before your bundle of joy can say no.

Sweater (P39,500)

by Burberry; bracelets (from top: P7,600 and P12,100)

by Northskull at Van Laack.

OF CHAMPIONS The right way to start the day is with a big breakfast and, yes, comfortable clothes. The litmus test of acceptable comfortable clothes is this question: Can I wear this outside?

Polo shirt by Hermès; bracelet (P12,900) by Northskull at Van Laack.

MORNING RUSH Though no one will lay eyes on what lies beneath, wear an undershirt of luxury origins because it will make you feel what traditional workmanship and attention to detail can bring.

Undershirt (P4,700)

by Zimmerli and pants (P10,650) by Hitl, both at Van Laack.

KNOT SO FAST It’s never too early to indoctrinate the young in the ways of proper dressing, including, of course, the very important lesson of wearing a wonderful tie.

Suit (P72,450) and shirt by Paul Smith; watch by Louis Vuitton; ties

by Hermès.

FICTION

Surrogates HE TAUGHT HIM HOW TO SHAVE, USING A STRAIGHT RAZOR, AND NEVER AGAINST THE GRAIN, AND KNOT HIS NECKTIE, IN A DIFFICULT OLD-FASHIONED FOUR-IN-HAND THAT MADE BOTH MAN AND BOY BEAM PROUDLY AFTER EVERY SUCCESSFUL EFFORT.

BY SARGE LACUESTA

HER NAME WAS ALEX, and it was a boy’s name but it was on purpose.

That’s what it said on her calling card, not Alexandra, which it was short for, and underneath her name was the title “Executive Assistant,” which everyone correctly deciphered as one of the most powerful positions in the firm.

Jun was 24, at his first job, handed over to him on a plate carried above everyone else because his mother was in his boss’s wife’s mah-jongg circle.

But he made sure everyone knew he treated it as no handout: he set his alarm clock well before the sun rose, paid close attention to his grooming, and closely copied the way his superiors dressed, so as not to stand out. He drove to work early so he could get a parking space ahead of everyone else and made sure he was at his desk with the spreadsheets open on his screen by the time his boss got to work.

It was Alex who came in habitually late, and often with her hair still wet or her clothes looking as though she had forgotten to iron them. But she was the type of girl who you forgave for these things, or perhaps even celebrated.

She was disarmingly pretty, sure, and she was incredibly young, but she had made sure that she had made friends with the right office staff, from the grossly overweight accounting assistant who snorted as she disbursed checks to the rank and file, to the motorcycle messenger who managed to manipulate the schedules so that he hardly ever had to leave the office. The result of these friendships, characterized by quick questions on how their kids were doing, or how their sports injuries were faring that day, was that Alex could come and go almost as she pleased, with her tardy time cards dismissed with a wave and a conspiratorial raise of the eyebrows, and her personal errands completed without her having to get off her seat.

When she was not at her seat she was in Ben’s office, notepad in hand, presumably receiving his dictation in the shorthand she had learned at her exclusive Catholic school. It was such an exclusive education that nobody else knew how to read—much less write—that lost language, which largely looked like a bunch of nonsense on her notepad. Someone remarked that it looked like Chinese, but Jun knew a little bit of what Chinese looked

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like, and even felt like under his fingertips, from observing his mother play mah-jongg when he was a child, and from learning to read the etched tiles without looking.

To Jun, it seemed that his mother had never left the mah-jongg table all his life. There was a mah-jongg table even at his father’s funeral after he died of cancer when Jun was 12, and a table in every house they moved into in the lonely years that followed. But in retrospect, it was mah-jongg that had kept them, mother and son, from really being lonely. The clatter of tiles on the table, the idle talk and the counting of small winnings, and the happenings in the lives of her mother’s tablemates all made up for the large absence his father had left.

Across his mother was always Tita Chinggay, a dark-skinned woman who liked to distinguish herself as the most sophisticated of them, thanks to a husband of true Spanish lineage 20 years her senior who was always out of the country on business. On his mother’s left was always Norma, who forbade anyone to call her Tita, or even Auntie, and who always spoke of her children and grandchildren who lived in the US and who she had not seen, or even heard from in two decades. On his mother’s right was always Tita Baby, her high school friend, her maid of honor, her personal confidante, who was heir to vast tracts of copra and sugar and who could be counted upon to spot her some much-needed cash whenever she was in a tight spot. But in return for all this, Jun’s mother also provided the sisterhood Tita Baby needed.

In their early years together, Tita Baby would frantically pack her things as soon as she heard Tito Ben speed around the driveway to pick her up. She would smile feverishly as he honked his horn, explaining as she kissed the ladies and said her goodbyes that she and Tito Ben were trying for a baby.

The child never happened, although Tita Baby never seemed to lose hope, even when they were well into their 40s and their marriage had all but lost its early shine. By this time, Tito Ben had gradually picked up the effort of venturing into the house when he drove over, playing videogames with Jun, and even teaching him chess and backgammon. He went shopping with him for a suit to wear to his prom. He taught him how to shave, using a

SHOES BY LOUIS VUITTON.

straight razor, and never against the grain, and knot his necktie, in a difficult old-fashioned four-in-hand that made both man and boy beam proudly after every successful effort. Later on, through his adolescent years, he regarded Tito Ben as his guide and his gatekeeper, advising him on what course to take in college, and giving him his unsolicited opinion on how to court a girl he was interested in, as well as how to break up with her once he had lost his interest.

It was only natural that a few weeks after graduation, Jun would seek employment at Tito Ben’s trading company, which he had set up using Tita Baby’s money. His arrival was welcomed roundly by the office staff. Tito Ben was a tough boss who had little regard for his employees, and who liked handing out personal loans and paid leaves to those he took a particular shine to, or who went out of their way to please him. As for the rest of the staff, they were relieved to see Jun as the rightful heir to the business, going as far as referring to Tito Ben as “tatay” and to Jun as “anak.”

Jun tagged along at every meeting and conference Tito Ben attended, and was a witness on every contract and memorandum of agreement. Soon enough, he had acquired a real presence at management discussions and deliberations.

But neither of them had anticipated Alex, who Tito Ben had hired a year before him as an intern while she was still in third year college, and then as a regular employee as soon as she graduated. During this period she had grown into the fullness of her womanhood quickly and unexpectedly well, her jawline suddenly delineating itself and lengthening her face, her cheekbones emerging out of the pools of her eyes, her breasts filling up her teenage blouses, her limbs stretching themselves out until her skirts and her dresses seemed precariously short and inappropriate. It was during this time too, that she had quickly and successfully established an untouchable position in the office staff.

Soon, Tito Ben’s obvious and undue attention toward her merely added to the suspicion, distrust, and direct animosity among the staff. As the accounts receivable piled up as a result of Tito Ben’s growing inattention and their

account managers’ disdain, the requests for loans, leaves, and petty cash also piled up on Alex’s desk, unnoticed, and later on, ignored.

At this point, the staff had no recourse but to turn to Jun for help. They knew he had their ear; he was Tito Ben’s ward, but despite his affiliations he had proven himself to be useful to the firm’s operations, and even instrumental to their recent successes. The way he comported himself, manner of speaking, and even his style of dress had quickly earned him their respect. They begged him earnestly to knock some sense into his “tatay,” to show him that the business was something that sustained them all.

By this time, Jun, too, had felt ignored. He had begun to feel an absence he had been all too familiar with, in himself and at the center of his mother’s unchanging circle of friends at the mah-jongg table. Tito Ben had stopped taking him to meetings, preferring instead to bring Alex, who had developed considerable rapport with the customers. For her, Tito Ben bore an extra measure of patience and attention whenever she had a question to ask, or, later on, a suggestion to make.

When Jun entered Tito Ben’s office unbidden that day, it was all that he had expected: Alex reclining in the wide, flat couch Tita Baby had installed in his office just a week before, her head on his lap, his hands tenderly brushing the hair back from her face. Tito Ben looked up at him.

“Don’t tell your Tita Baby,” he said, bringing up a hard glint into his eyes, as if he were recalling to Jun in that hardness all the time he had invested in him. Jun had always been an obedient child; he understood Tito Ben’s presence in his life as a God-given second chance, not only for himself, but for his widowed mother.

Jun raised a hand and put it firmly on Tito Ben’s arm, the first time he had ever laid his hand on him, lifted him out of his seat and guided him toward the open door. Jun turned to Alex, who had seemed to shrink back into her clothes and her body, and had begun to resemble a little girl. He felt every lesson, every favor handed down to him by his surrogate father weigh down on him as a burden that he could only afford to repay with complete silence, and like a child he demanded of her the same.

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BORED GAMES Liven up a sleepy afternoon with the double punch of a graphic stroke and an unusual color.

On Mikee: polo shirt (P29,100) by Louis Vuitton; shorts (P15,950) by Paul Smith. On Nicolo: cap by Hermès.

ABOUT A BOY Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday, you will be a real boy. So says the Blue Fairy to Pinocchio.

If we’re going by this fairytale rule, then the celebrity puppet Nicolo of master ventriloquist Wanlu has earned his right to ascend into reality by virtue of giving children big-belly laughs and their parents a much needed break.

Jacket, T-shirt, and pants

by CK Platinum; bracelet (P10,350) by Northskull at Van Laack.

HOME ALONE Dad Tip No. 274: Consider the cardigan as the sport coat of the home.

Also consider how its cozy construction can double as a pillow for a sleepy boy.

Cardigan (P16,500)

by Tommy Hilfiger.

Thanks to: Wanlu and his Puppets (wanlu.net) Grooming: Muriel Vega Perez for Clinique Style assistant: Miguel Escobar Production assistant: Ednalyn Magnaye Intern: Cathereen Calungsud

MR. MOM ALANDRA Haliya Carrion is an affectionate little girl. She’s just a few months shy of two years old, with a mop of dark brown hair and adorable pale blue eyes.

Within a few minutes of meeting you, she pouts her lips and leans in for a kiss. She does this to everyone in the room, most often to the puppet Nicolo, who takes her place in these photos. Her father, sports commentator and football analyst Mikee Carrion, knows this habit of hers too well. “She’s like that even with the little boys she meets, he says, rolling his eyes in halfjoking disapproval.

Mikee’s strong Iberian features and full sleeve of tattoos give way to that endearing fatherly trait of protectiveness, and yet there is still much more to this dad than what tradition expects. To wit: When Alandra asks to be picked up, he picks her up himself. He feeds her, cleans up after her, and plays with her. “We don’t have helpers or yayas,“ he points out. “I believe the best care comes from parents. No one else.”

That’s why he’s thankful that his work, covering UAAP Football, the World Cup qualifiers, and the AFC Cup for ABS-CBN, allows him a flexible schedule to be an involved parent. “[Full participation] should be expected of men as parents.

I don’t think anyone should be proud to be a clueless dad,” he says.

“Being domesticated and nurturing is one thing men should re-learn and embrace.” He also speaks passionately about how everyone— most especially his daughters, Alandra, Nuela, and Adriana—should break away from traditional roles: “I want my daughters to learn not to be slaves of gender stereotypes. As a dad, I wish I could help them grow into women who value themselves without needing anyone’s approval.”

Well said.—MIGUEL ESCOBAR

Shirt and pants by Hermès.

Hermès, Greenbelt 3. Louis Vuitton and Burberry, Greenbelt 4. Paul Smith, Tommy Hilfiger, and Zimmerli, Hitl, and Northskull, all at Van Laack, Greenbelt 5. CK Platinum, SM Aura.

This Way Out

PREVIOUSLY ON ESQUIRE...

AUGUST 1971

BY AU D R E Y N . CA R P I O GAY TALESE’S EXCERPT FROM HIS BOOK, Honor Thy Father, documented the aftermath of the kidnapping of Joe Bonanno, one of the prominent Mafia padrinos who ruled New York in the 1950s. At the heart of the saga is the story of Bonanno’s son Bill, who throughout his life had to contend with the strange reality of growing up in a crime family and eventually ascending into one of its top positions. The young Bill was neither shielded from the nature of the elder Bonanno’s life, nor was he deliberately exposed to it, that when the ultimate realization came, “it was neither shocking nor disillusioning.” In fact, he had always admired, even worshipped his father and naturally accepted everything that was expected of him, including marrying the daughter of a close mobster friend of Joe’s, a woman Bill was not particularly compatible with, but no matter, because it was essentially a “marriage of fathers.”

Art director George Lois, when conceptualizing the magazine cover, wanted to handle the topic with a certain reverence, not the usual tabloid sensationalism that comes with Mafia

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reporting. He enlisted the help of Joe’s widow, who unearthed vintage photos of Bonanno from the 1930s. The sepia-tone photograph captured what the Esquire man was all about: stylish, dignified, and wearing a great suit. He just happened to be Mafioso. “Maybe it’s a basic character flaw on my part,” Lois said, “but one of the axioms in the Bible I’ve always lived by, is honor thy father, no matter what the old man’s line of work.”

With this line of thinking, even dictators and despots are worthy of a son’s veneration.

When Honor Thy Father came out, Joe was initially infuriated with his son for granting Talese all those candid interviews.

Later, however, he decided to pen his own autobiography, called A Man of Honor, which ironically outraged his fellow Mafia bosses for its brazen violation of the code of omerta. Bill’s wife ended up writing a memoir as well, which was turned into the Lifetime network TV movie Love, Honor and Obey: The Last Mafia Marriage. In the underworld, honor certainly means a lot of different things.