Yes, Simon, I'd Marry You

Oh, the beauty of male youth. God knows how much time I spend everyday on looking at pictures and pictures of these lithe and exuberant creatures (check the side bar titled Hombres).

Not that I'm turning into some pederast or something equally vile. Far from it. But that's just me. I adore men (or perhaps boys) who are lanky and with zero body fat and we all know that youth affords us with a crazy metabolism. Get the connection now?

Skinny male models have been in the rage for some years now and there's no sign of that slowing down yet, thank God. Season after season, we are seeing the stratospheric rise of relatively frail-looking models such as Cole Mohr, Ashley Stymest, Luke Worral, Josh Beech, etc. (These boys are also quite known for their rebellious personalities, which obviously adds to their appeal in the fashion industry.)

My current (OK, perhaps for several seasons now) male model crush is the cherubic Simon Nessman, who's probably best known for his pillowy lips, curly hair, and of course scrawny frame. OMG, I would give up all my shoes for Simon.

Born in 1990 in British Columbia, Simon signed up for Major Models Management in 2007 and has since then been photographed by Mario Testino, Bruce Weber, and Matthias Vriens. He has also been featured in various magazines such as V, Dazed and Confused, GQ, Vogue Paris, and L'Uomo Vogue, as well as appearing in the campaigns of D&G, Givenchy, and lately an underwear campaign for John Galliano.

You can check out his tags in the Major Models Management blog.

Coincidentally, I'm also developing an enormous crush on equally-scrawny newcomer Patrick Kafka, who is also under Major Models. I would give up all my scarves for him too!


Patrick is only 17 and hails from Vienna. I've seen him in a number of editorials over the past months and he was also all over the Spring-Summer 2010 shows, thus he was listed by Models.com as one of the Top Ten New Faces for that season.

His tag on Major Models is found here. He also has a collection of photos in Morphosis.

Are You Asian?

Lookie, lookie, bitches.

This pouty blog is again featured in one of my suki blog, the uber fierce and gorge Lyka Bergen and Her Stepsisters blog (a.k.a. Las Tres Estrellas). Lyka's post is titled The Great Asian Pose, which is inspired by three pictures of Maggie Cheung, Bubbles, and moi that I posted on Facebook.

The photos were taken in Khao San Road last Friday evening when we went drinking to celebrate the return of Maggie Cheung (I couldn't be more than thrilled!).

Anyway, our version of the Great Asian Pose is just also inspired by an entry from the super gay, Gayz of Our Lives (I'm freaking crazy over this blog). 

Gayz of Our Lives was similarly just following the examples of the very influential blog Asian Poses. 

Now, bitches, there is no excuse why you shouldn't follow suit. Better whip out that camera, werq those Asian poses, and post them on your blog.

Oh, BTW, I have been twitting for months now, attention hog that I am. Who wants to exchange links? My profile is @GirardPhilip. I follow you, you follow me. Up to you, as the Thais would say. 

Ode to BKK: Hidden Beauty

[This entry is recycled from a "photo blog" I posted on Facebook last April, just around the Songkran Festival. Few of my Facebook friends must've read this before but today I'm sharing it on the blog as part of the series on BKK. I think the post captures my mood when I took these photos, showing how, in myriad forms, the city kindles inspiration even in the most unlikely places.]

I walked from the Democracy Monument to my building last Saturday afternoon. The streets were pretty empty. Most people of the city were away for the Buddhist New Year.

I found my self in a neighborhood of shop-houses, which are some of my favorite architectural features of Bangkok particularly in Ratanakosin Island and the adjoining area.

That afternoon, I was lucky to see more than just the rows of shop-houses that were mostly shuttered for the long holiday anyway.

I stumbled into an old building that did not look traditionally Thai to me, I guess constructed at the turn of the century when Bangkok went through a major face lift, including the addition of many Western-style buildings.

I remember being drawn to the building several times before while riding a cab, but not until last Saturday did I see it up close. I’ve always wondered what it was for. Clearly, it is not being used at the moment, perhaps for many years now.

Its beauty is not lost though, especially in its splendid details of floral motifs on the grills and on the reliefs generously adorning its facade, together with cherubs’ faces on its columns. On the second floor, green windows give the structure a streak of color while an ornate arch serves as its crown.

Turning right on Dinso street, I crossed the canal in Saphan Wan Chat where I saw this arched bridge spanning the fetid, muddy water. A tree is on one side of the canal, its red flowers seemingly put afire by the setting sun.

The juxtaposition of the graceful curve of bridge and the radiance of the tree, both reflected on the putrid waterway, is entrancing, an image that one often finds in the most unlikely corners of Bangkok if you keep your eyes open.

Exploring the Palaces of Petchaburi

Today I took a short but truly wonderful trip with Shanghai Tang to Petchaburi, a province around two hours south of BKK.

Our first stop was the Phra Nakon Khiri National Museum (constructed in 1859), a palace complex sitting on top of a hill with breath-taking views of Petchaburi.

We started with a very brief cable car ride to the top of the hill. We then explored the compound, which is a mix of a palace, a stupa, and a smallish temple all scattered on three main peaks of the hill top. The style of the structures is an elegant mix of Chinese, European, and Thai influences and the buildings seem to rise from a teeming canopy.

We also dropped by the imposing Phra Ram Ratchaniwet (constructed in 1910-1916), a resort house of King Rama VI. A German architect was commissioned to design the palace. The vast interior has dazzling touches of Jugendstil or Art Nouveau, with glazed tiles on the floor and the walls.

Obviously, the style is very European, but was adapted to tropical climate through numerous wide windows and grills on the walls to enhance air circulation. The steep roof was maintained though, which to me was just an awful waste of space. LOL. But then, palaces are mostly whimsical anyway.

Ode to BKK: The Chao Phraya River

In roughly three weeks I'm officially celebrating my second year in Thailand. I reckon I should come up with something on this blog to mark the occasion, well basically just for the sake of it.

OK, let's say for the sake of nostalgia. You know me and nostalgia are like thisclose. LOL.

What better way to honor my two years in this city than to dedicate a number of posts to Bangkok, a place that I call my home. It's quite obvious in this blog that I have this big love affair with the City of Angels. I'd marry it if it were possible.

So for the coming weeks I'll write about the different aspects of the city that has made it more endearing to me.

I shall start this "series" with the Chao Phraya River.

On my first morning in BKK, the view of the river captured me right away.

From my building, the Chao Phraya is only about three minutes away via the temple grounds. I was quite surprised how wide it actually is, at least in that stretch near my building. Looming nearby is the majestic Rama VIII bridge with its signature pylon and golden suspension cables.

A few days later, I braved riding the commuter boat, which I recorded in this post: "Found in the route were barges, bridges, markets and pubs cantilevered on the murky water, more piers, canal exits, and some smaller boats that have shorter routes. The roof of a number of wats (temples) and the spires of the Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), together with towering hotels, are only some of the more majestic sights along the river."

Regular days on the river are usually a frenzy of crisscrossing commuter boats, speeding long-tail boats loaded with tourists, slow tug boats, and occasional men in jet skis (jing jing!). The many bridges spanning it are usually clogged with vehicles.

Taking over in the evening are garishly-lit boats brimming with tourists snapping pictures of the Wat Arun and Rama VIII bridge. Oh, don't get me started on the loud music playing from those tourist boats.

Soon enough, I developed a close affinity to the river, making it a point to take the boat on Friday afternoons as a ritual of sort. I love being soothed by the bobbing boat along with other weary commuters.

Late afternoons on the river are always spectacular. The golden roofs of the Grand Palace for instance are best viewed during this time as it glimmers in the sunset. Often I find my self going to the pier near the temple to just watch the sun slide in the horizon and slather the sky with different shades of orange and red. Or if I'm in the mood for walking I head off to Phra Arthit (about twenty minutes by foot from my building) to observe people, sometimes to read, or more of watching the sunset.

In the many months I've been observing the Chao Phraya, I noticed that it has it moods as well. In the dry months, it turns grayish and the water is relatively low, revealing the spindly legs of the piers that dot its banks. In the wet season, the water is muddy and it usually rises to even flood some parts of the city.

As a city absorbed in rituals, I've seen the Chao Phraya decked in resplendent rowers during the Royal Barge Procession, or glimmer to the small floats that people release on the Loy Krathong Festival.

But what amuses me most among these rituals is when, on no particular occasion, people feed the pigeons infesting the piers (or at least the pier closest to my building). Below the piers are humongous fish that live on a daily diet of stale bread (what did I tell you about carbo-loading?!). This feeding ritual is part of merit-making among Buddhists, I heard.

Whenever I have friends coming over to BKK, I try my best to bring them to the Chao Phraya because I think that the river shows them a good slice of life in the city. I'm quite lucky that they love the Chao Phraya as much as I do! (Gosh, otherwise I would feed them to the pigeons, no?)

I think for any visitor to see the real Bangkok, he has to see the river. Bangkok is practically born along the banks of the Chao Phraya and since then the river has served more than just commercial or touristic purposes but it is also one of the epicenters of Thai culture and rituals. The city and the river are pretty much inseparable.

And personally, the Chao Phraya would always be a main part of my life in Bangkok. It is a constant source of fascination and inspiration as the river constantly changes and there are always new things to discover. Also, over and over again, it has served as my refuge from the craziness of the city and the madness of my own mind.

Nice 2 meat you?

It's the second day of the long weekend in Thailand. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week are non-working days in observance of Buddhist Lent. I was planning to take a trip to some island in the east but alas I did not have anyone to go with.

In the end that proved to be a blessing coz I had more money for shopping. LOL. Today I even dropped by my favorite second-hand store that sells women's clothes. Love their stuff there coz they're all unique and quirky... not to mention cheap too! I ended up with a white shirt with some twisted detail.

Burberry Prorsum isdatchyu?

And oh, I also bought from the same shop that black jacket I'm wearing in the picture below. I love women's clothes!!!

But goodness, somebody please tell me to put an end to buying more and more and more. I'm serious; this shopping "spree" has to stop, it's not funny anymore.

Anyway, BFF Bubbles and I went to yet another night of clubbing in Silom last Friday and then Saturday evening we roamed around the Khao San Road area, basically people watching.

Today we visited the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre, which has become one of my favorite places to hang out in since it opened last year. The space itself is striking, with the interior's shape compared very often to New York's Guggenheim Museum (I only saw the latter in pictures).

The curves are indeed elegant with many of its cavernous halls using natural lighting. It's also encouraging that there are regular shows in BACC and that many people, especially Thais, seem to visit it, thanks to its central location.

They've recently installed this humongous alien-like sculpture in front of the building and it has since caught the fancy of many of BKK's denizens.

There were a number of separate exhibits this time. There's even a show of the Philippines' Baldemor (I forgot his first name, basta it's not Leandro, LOL) in celebration of 60 years of Thai and Philippine diplomatic relations.

There was also an exhibit of Italian and Thai artists titled White Spring (if I remember it correctly). Perhaps the most fascinating piece is by Fabrizio Corneli, who used cut-outs and halogen lamps to cast large shadows on the wall.

A section was dedicated to Australian Brook Andrew also showed some of his works that use a variety of media.

The top floor of the BACC was allocated for a rather irreverent and eye-catching collaboration between a French and a Thai artist titled Nice to Meet You.

Oh, one more thing... we recently discovered this Chinese dumpling store in Central World that has the most amazing sticky rice thingie wrapped in some leaves (gosh, somebody please tell me what this is called in Thai).

I ate there three times this week!

And oh... did I mention we camwhored?

Publish Post

I'm afraid I'm on a blogger's block. These past few days have been uninspiring despite the many materials I could use for this blog. I have a notebook filled with quotes from friends as well as ideas that pop into my head when I'm in the bus or when I stare at the clouds from my bedroom window.

But I can't seem to write anything coherent, much less sensible, lately.

I wonder if, as bloggers, it is our responsibility to be sensible at all? Or do we write for writing's sake -with sense or without sense?

I've talked to quite a good number of bloggers and it seems that the drive to be sensible varies from one writer to another. It mainly depends on what their vision for their blog is.

Some simply write like no one's reading them, a style that I call babbling but still written in an endearingly raw voice. While some bloggers churn out post after post of well-thought and well-structured entries (gosh, I envy them for their clarity). Either way, some are effective in expressing themselves in certain styles.

I'm not the kind who says which of these two approaches is better as long as they write well (posts should have at least some coherence and preferably tightly-written). In fact I read many blogs that are on both sides of the spectrum or somewhere in between. The variety of writing styles out there makes the whole community as vibrant as ever.

Meanwhile, I always ask blogger friends if they ever think of what their readers say about their entries or their blog as a whole. Again, the answers vary, but most of the time they do care about the feedback they receive. It does not matter whether they write anonymously or not.

(Well perhaps it's the fact that many of my blogger friends are actual writers who know that one of the basics of good writing is to keep your audience in mind.)

When talking about blogs that we read, my friends and I seem to be kind of emotionally invested in our favorite blogs... well, sometimes. We have long been spectators to other peoples' "lives" that we have somehow developed expectations and even made judgments about them.

I realized, readers can be quite critical, if not outright demanding sometimes. Oh, count me in that crop of readers. Sorry!

It's quite odd that we feel entitled to "participate" in the way our favorite blogs are shaped, with remarks such as: "I don't like how he's writing more of this when he should be writing more about this," or "He has completely gone nuts," or "What is he thinking?" and so on.

Maybe as readers we've treated blog authors as characters who need to PROVIDE us with some level of entertainment, if not amusement. I shudder at the thought of people thinking of me, as a blogger, that way.

Are bloggers responsible for how readers perceive them?

Bloggers would understand more than the regular reader that even our blogs are entities on their own, at least to a certain extent. Our blogs may represent a fraction of who we are, but that's just on a minuscule scale. I believe some blogs are even alter-egos of their writers.

So as readers, I don't think we should take blogs THAT seriously. Well, OK, I take the blogs I read seriously coz I realize the posts take a lot of effort to put together. But content-wise, I read my favorite blogs with a certain degree of detachment and oftentimes consume them solely for their entertainment value.

I'm a bit perturbed, however, when bloggers need to defend themselves from some nasty comments. It seems some readers believe they know the authors well enough through the latters' blogs and have thus the bravado to pass judgment. On the other hand, putting themselves in the open, bloggers have to be ready for criticisms as well. Comments are supposed to be not taken personally though.

What do we do when comments are way too personal? Delete them. I have yet to defend my self from nasty comments. I choose to optimize comment moderation instead.

But we certainly love feedback... the positive ones at least. We love throwing around adoration and receiving double that, chai mai?

I chose to write about bloggers' interaction (if not, relationship) with their readers because for the longest time I've been having many discussions with friends about our favorite bloggers or the ones we've discovered recently. Gosh, if only some bloggers know how much time we spend talking about their "creations"! (Yeah, coz we have boring lives.)

Sometimes I guess it's worthwhile to take a step back and ponder on these things, as both a "producer" and "consumer" of blogs.

With the multifarious purposes of blogs, they oftentimes act as refuge from the craziness of daily life. It may also serve as a platform for expression, sharing, and reaching out to others.

But the bottomline is blogs are mostly personal spaces. Readers are invited to step inside these realms of introspection and as guests they are expected to be nice, at the very least. Do not be too engaged, dear readers. It's JUST a blog!

(No, the pictures in this post are not exactly related to the topic. Tse!)

Hush Hush

OMG, I heard this song for the first time last weekend in a club. And I swear I could not get enough of it, right Bubbles?

I'm sorry for the quality of the video below though, but this is the best I could find at the moment.

Just press play and listen (there's a familiar tune in the middle of the song, girls). 

Biking Around Ancient City

Sigh, I'm so not in the mood to write anything now. I don't have any good material to write about, except perhaps the latest men's shows in Milan and Paris, but I don't know where to start on that. All I have are heaps of pictures that I snatched from Livejournal.

Oh well. It's the last day of June. In a month's time I'm officially on my second year in BangCock. Who'd have known it had been 24 months ago since the bayot stepped for the first time in the City of Angels.

Anyway, I might as well post a half-hearted weekend report. Lots of booze, dancing, cigarettes, shopping, and biking.

Let me talk about the biking part coz I have a few pictures to share. I went to Ancient City last Sunday with my French friends. We ended up as a party of thirteen biking around the ponds of Ancient City. I had very little expectations of the place so I was quite pleasantly surprised how charming it really was, although I would not say it was groundbreaking either.

Simply put, it's a piece of land where all the major architectural landmarks of Thailand can be seen (akin to the Nayong Pilipino in Manila), although many of the structures are approximately of the same size as the original. Some are reproductions but several are the original structures and reconstructed in the site.

It was a fun afternoon of biking galore and chit chat, ending up with dinner in a lovely sea-side restaurant.


Oh, here's a picture of the view from my window last night. I love the wet weather!

Dear Diary

As mentioned in this post, I managed to unearth some old journals I left in Surigao and Manila. Since I arrived back to BangCock I've been reading through them and had been continuously fascinated at how much I discover about myself when I was 14, 17, and so on.

I even ended most of my entries with a prayer to my guardian angel or something and that kept my eyes rolling as I went through the entries.

One particular journal stood out from the bunch though. Written within a span of nearly two and a half years (the first entry was in 2001 and the last was 2003), it covers my post-university days, particularly when I moved to Davao and then when I lived between Cebu and Surigao.

The first part mainly recorded my initial attempt at job-hunting. These were long, idle months, hence, I had the time to write about all the most mundane stuff on earth. And then I eventually found a job, explaining why there was a six-month gap in the entries.

I resumed writing in the journal when I had my first brush with, ehem, love. *Insert "Psycho" music here.* Well, particularly when I was heart-broken, which I touched on in this and this entries. Now this is where things became a bit more cringe-inducing when I read the entries a few days back.

I was YMing with a retired blogger (you know who you are!) about my reaction to the old entries and I told him that the main, BIG realization is: "Damn, the bayot has not changed!".

I was supposed to post here some lines from the journal to prove my point, but I digress. It's revealing way, way too much. I don't want to go into the details either.

Simply put, I could've written the exact entries down to the last word to describe how I felt a year ago, the last time I grieved over losing someone. *Insert "Jaws" music here.* I could even say the same thing for all the three times that I had my heart broken. Now that's a span of like six years, but my style is sooo last, last, last, last season it might as well be vintage. Sigh.

I also happen to have in my hands right now my old love letters with the second guy who broke my heart, and I also have my hidden blog to record the third instance. *Wince, wince, wince while rolling on the floor.* Ok, given these records, I tried to assess my relationship pattern.

And so when I was YMing with Retired Blogger (my personal process queen), I said that there seems to be a trend in my "relationships" (I could not help but put the quotation marks), or at least how they ended.

Without going into specifics, consistently it appears that they're a compendium of me being taken for granted by these men, or not being loved in return, or me not being in their priority list.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS, I just walk away without fuss, knowing very well that I cannot push my self down other people's throat. Begging is definitely out of the question. And well, the post-break-up part is a major story of its own (which I shall write about in the future. That too has a clear pattern.)

I'm curious if indeed it's very difficult to break relationship habits. I haven't talked to that many gay men about their relationship patterns, but I wonder what theirs would be if ever they have one. Or do they even bother to examine their past?

I just happen to obsessively document things, hence, I have something to look back to. But still for most people it would not require a found journal or a secret blog to plot their patterns. Why don't you tell me about yours?

Street-Style Inspirations

Among the many blogs I check everyday (and only God knows how numerous that exactly is), I always look forward to checking the street-style blogs for a dash of fashion inspiration.

It's amazing how many street-style blogs are there and most big cities have at least one key street-style blogger, i.e. The Sartorialist for NYC (at least initially) as well as in Berlin, Oslo, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, London, etc.

Sometimes I feel that there are distinct looks for each city but the more I check the sites, it appears that the styles vary way too much for a certain look to be exclusively called as Tokyo, Paris, or Barcelona. I've had this kind of discussion with Fuchsiaboy about a year ago and I'd expound on that in a later post.

But for the meantime, let me share to you yet again some of my street-style inspirations. I've amassed a number of photos from various websites (some of them I forgot to note) so I had to edit this collection of photos very carefully.

I also check the street-style photos featuring women. But for this blog, I only choose to share men's photos coz they serve as inspirations for my own style as well. I wish I can be as brazen as the guys below but I'm pushing my self a bit more one step at a time.

The pictuers with the small icon on the bottom-right are from this uber cool site called Street Peeper, while I indicate at the bottom of the pics the source of the rest (if I still happen to remember them).

(from Tokyo in Style Arena)

(from Melbourne)


(from Tokyo)

(from Paris)

(from Paris)

(from Paris)

(from Melbourne)

(from London)

(from Tokyo)

(from Tokyo)

(from Just Glitter)

Aside from the clothes they're wearing, lately I've also been fascinated with hair, such as the couple of pictures below from one of my favorite street-style bloggers, Garance Dore. I think I got the last picture from Trendy Crew. I wonder if it's time for me grow back my hair.

(he is NOT Fuchsiaboy!!!)