The Salamander

Whatever bleeding-heart optimists say, being a housewife (or house husband for that matter) is not a noble job. It’s the recourse of a person who is too afraid of having a life other than as his/her partner’s satellite. Look, both my parents were teachers so my brothers and I grew up around various housemaids and we never resented our folks for that. In fact, I think it would have driven me insane had I grown up with my mother in the house all day, everyday. So no, I don’t think being a house-person is cute at all. Earning money is always better than staying at home and raising the kids. If you were earning money you’d have the power to hire people who will stay at home and raise the kids for you.

READ IT, CAVEMAN

I have three blogs:

Songs of the Salamander on Blogger, which is currently just a repository of the nasty posts I write primarily for The Man Blog.

Shaman with a Gun, also on Blogger; but this one’s already dead and its soul has gone on to blog heaven for not being an internet asshole. What’s left of it is a corpse that just wouldn’t turn into dust. I created it so that I can publish my short stories online.

And then there’s this one, The Salamander. This is my first ever blog and I’ve managed to get attract a handful of readers throughout the years. Unlike the articles in Songs of the Salamander (which are just retarded buffoonery), my posts here are a little bit closer to what I really am in real life. Closer, because a lot of bloggers will tell you (if they are being painfully honest) that they make themselves sound just a bit more interesting in their posts than they actually are. It’s forgivable, I think. We are all the protagonists in our own lives. God help you if you consider yourself a mere co-star in the movie of your life. So, yes, I’ve tried to make myself sound a little bit more interesting here. My sarcastic humor (humor being arguable to people who don’t like me) has found its way here as well. My posts here are sometimes nasty but it’s obvious when I’m just fucking with you. At least, I hope it’s obvious. And I hope that it’s also obvious to you by now that Songs of the Salamander is me making nasty jokes with a straight face while The Salamander is me making nasty jokes as an aside to what we’re discussing because I know we’re chums and you wouldn’t mind me fucking with you.

Notice how I try to distance myself with Songs of the Salamander? Like I can’t stress it enough that Squid Villanueva isn’t really me. That he’s just what Ade calls the Inner Jerk, a repressed monster who’s only got a voice when on the internet.

Now, my cyberfriends, it is my sad duty to inform you that The Salamander is signing off. That goes for Shaman with a Gun too.

My reasons?

One, I’m fed up with trying (in vain) to maintain three blogs. My life isn’t interesting enough for three blogs.

Two, I realized I should make money out of short stories and not give them to you guys for free. I don’t love you guys that much. I’m deleting Shaman with a Gun within a week’s time. If you want to see what my stories sound like before my Internet Asshole stage, head over there.

Three, I think it’s time to do some justice by Squid and stop treating him like the mad uncle everyone’s too embarrassed to talk about and who lives by himself in the attic. He may be my inner jerk but he’s still a part of me… if for nothing else than the opportunity to refer to myself in the third person.

Four, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Friendster Blogs suck. I’m fed up with my blog’s crappy design and I’m fed up with how I can’t do anything about it; at least not in the free account. And I don’t know anyone who actually pays for this shit.

From hereon I’ll be posting everything on Songs of the Salamander, retarded articles as well as the more serious ones. I’ll leave it to you to decide if I’m making nasty jokes with a straight face or if I’m actually trying to say something worthwhile. You’re smart enough to do that. What I’ll be posting here will be little teasers that will link you to Songs of the Salamander. If you really like my writing you’ll manage to have the time to check out that blog. The Salamander, after this post, will just be a zombie blog.

Good day, everyone. It’s been a great ride and I hope I see you in Songs of the Salamander. Booya.

Upon logging into my Friendster account yesterday, I discovered a message waiting for me. The text of the message, in full, is as follows:

hello there sir

hi there, just saw ur blog the other day and i admit you really have the gift when it comes to writing. all of your entries where really great. actually many of your friends also think that you’re great when it comes to words. so i was hoping if you could help me write the ultimate hate mail to one of my co-residents (im a resident doctor .. OB).. she is really getting to my nerves. ACtualy lahat kami dito sa hopsital hate her.. pls.. i can give her characeteristics if you like.. pls pls

The sender is apparently some chick named Joyce who, as we’ve seen in her message, claims to be a doctor in some hospital. I’m sure she won’t mind me posting a link to her hastily-made account since she seems to have created it specifically to mail me this shining example of the art of correspondence. I’m also quite sure Joyce wouldn’t mind me answering her message in this blog. Thus…

Dear Joyce:

First of all, a doctor just out of medical school would be nearer in age to thirty than thirteen. Judging by the imbecility of the way you write and what you’re asking of me, I suspect that you’re more of a moronic teenager than a medical professional. When you get to your late twenties, you stupid little fuck, you’ll hopefully discover that most grownups have much more significant things to worry about– like putting food on the table, for instance– than writing your so-called “ultimate hate mail” for a nasty co-worker. Look, I know that your sophomoric desire to tell off the class cocksucker your boyfriend’s been fucking behind your back must seem to you like a thing of world-shattering importance. Believe me, though, you have bigger problems to mull over than that. To begin with, your boyfriend’s been fucking someone else because you’re so damned fugly the wrinkled skin of my balls seems like a thing of great beauty compared to your mug. Even better, Baby Jesus was just on the phone and he told me that he’s going to give you cervical cancer because he thinks you’re a lousy cunt and that it’s going to make your cunnyhole stink like a festering corpse as it eats your accursed womb. So fuck you and don’t ever come around these parts again or I’ll rip your fucking intestines out through your fucking asshole and wear them around my fucking neck like a fucking necklace for a few weeks and then feed them to my fucking dog and then dance the fucking Macarena on it when it comes out as fucking dog-shit.

Hugs and Kisses,
Squid

Of course, that was just a first draft of my reply to Joyce. Being a firm believer in writing as rewriting, I polished my letter a few times and mailed her the following message:

Re: hello there sir

Hi, Joyce. Although I’d love to help you out I can’t grant your request. I don’t think that would be ethical. I know that sounds weird coming from a self-confessed internet asshole but there are lines I won’t cross. I don’t think I can bring myself to insult someone who hasn’t done anything to deserve my hate. Let me explain. Away from the internet I’m just a normal person, if you can believe that. I wake up in the morning and go through my day trying not to make enemies of the people around me. I snark people on the net with my posts because I want to challenge their beliefs and opinions. If they can’t defend their cherished truths then I think it’s time for them to think hard about the things they believe in. I’m trying to be the devil’s advocate, not the devil himself. Again, sorry I can’t grant your request. If she’s really that bad you can perhaps make a letter of complaint, ask everyone to sign it, and then give it to your superiors. I’m sure she’ll get the point that everyone hates her.

Randy

Okay, this is something that I should’ve done a long time ago if only I wasn’t too lazy to do it. It’s called link love.

If you’re a blogger or blog savvy enough, you’ll know that blogs nowadays get popular through links. The unwritten rule is that if someone is kind enough to link to you, you should link back to repay the kindness. Some would say that’s a bad thing since this link favor system is forcing the actual quality of articles and posts to take the backseat, which would explain the popularity link-wise of some blogs that are actually internet garbage. If you spend your days posting nothing more significant than blow-by-blow accounts of how you collect navel lint, and then stomping all over the blogosphere to exchange links with similarly vapid bloggers, you’ll eventually find through Technorati that hundreds of blogs link to you. About roughly the same amount of links on your blog’s sidebar. That would be cool if those people actually read your blog and if you actually read theirs. Chances are, neither of you do.

I don’t want to be part of that fiasco. My philosophy is that I’ll link only to blogs that I actually read. If you’ve somehow stumbled into this little corner of the blogosphere and decide to link to me with the expectation that I’ll link back to you, let me bid you a hearty

That way, I can be assured that the people who view and/or link to my blogs are actually interested in what I have to say.

That said, I’d like to introduce you to some blogs and sites that I do visit or that I’m associated with. I can’t put these links up on The Salamander since my free account on Friendster Blogs doesn’t let me mess around a lot with the template. Rest assured, though, that I’ll put them up in my Songs of the Salamander sidebar sometime before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Drum rolls, please.

MY POSTS APPEAR IN:

The Salamander
Squid Versus Revolver
Songs of the Salamander
FilipinoWriter.Com
The Man Blog
The Man Blog Forum
Pinoyblog

THE MAN BLOG RETARDS:

Mike “Fucking” Villar
Adam Mordo
Pau
Señor Coco
Noisy, Noisy Ade
Balls of Steel
Squid Villanueva
Bigbaddie
Riffology

BLOGGERS WHO GRUDGINGLY ADMIT I’M AWESOME:

Glitch
Glitch Again!
Hazel
Carlo
Gibbs Cadiz
Sativa Free
Mish
Fictionboy

That’s it. I regularly visit some other more famous sites but I won’t bother mentioning them here since they don’t need the promotion anymore. Now despite being the most awesome creature ever to walk the face of the earth I am still human and fallible. Much less fallible than other mortals, surely, but fallable still.  And so I probably overlooked some sites and blogs. If I’ve somehow overlooked you (I say sorry) or you want me to link to you because you think you’re awesome enough, drop a comment with your site’s URL. If you’re not awesome but are willing to pay me money to link to you, you’ll find me a very accommodating whore indeed so, again, drop a comment with your URL. Pay me enough and I’ll electronically sing praises about you every day for the rest of my life.

And…

If you’re a girl, anywhere between eleven and twenty-five years of age, cute, and willing to let me have my filthy way with your supple young body anytime I want to until such a time as I grow tired of you or you grow too old for my taste (whichever comes first), email me your phone number, a recent full body picture, and a close-up picture. My email addy’s “squid [underscore] villanueva [at] yahoo [dot] com” ait? I suppose you could include your blog’s URL too so that I can link to it and pretend to read it.