Phil Dunphy

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When I become a dad I want to be like Modern Family's Phil Dunphy. He's quirky. He knows how to have fun. He's never lost touch of his inner child. And although he might forget to fasten a cabinet here or change a light there, no one can ever doubt for one moment that he really, truly, deeply loves Claire and the kids, and would do anything for them.

Colonial undertones in The Walking Dead

Funny things happen to your viewing habits when you have an absurdly well-read Marxist critical theorist for a professor. Recently, I noticed that AMC's "The Walking Dead," a TV series adopted from the graphic novel of the same name, runs on quite a colonial theme.

TWD happens in a post-apocalyptic world, after humanity is torn to pieces following a horrific zombie outbreak. Government relief camps have probably been overrun by infected people. The Center for Disease Control was supposed to give hope for a cure, but it blew up on itself after it ran put of power. All semblance of civilization is now either destroyed or rusting in obsolesence.

In other words, the human race has come back to Square One.

Here's where the colonialism starts. The main characters of the story compose a group of survivors looking for resources and other possible signs of life. Most of the members of the group are white. They have a token black guy and an Asian with them. Most of the dirty work is assigned to the two of them. This includes going into town centers usually brimming with zombies looking for a meal when supplies are running low, or otherwise fending off "walkers." The group also has a gun-toting hillbilly who is constantly presented as violent and irrational. The keepers of order, those who keep things running, are of course the Caucasians.

The de-facto leader of the group is Rick, an awarded police officer. At the start of the series, Rick was presumed dead by his wife, his son, and his partner on the job (who was sleeping with his wife, on account of his being probably dead). But Rick got out of the deserted hospital he had been confined in, dressed himself—in his police uniform, which says quite a lot—and was able to reunite his family and their newfound group (and eventually boss people around). This is quite a feat, but it is necessary to establish that even after the world has ended, a a cop—an agent of the State—is still in charge of things. This theme is further strengthened by the fact that despite all the Hell the group has taken on, Rick never forgets his policeman's hat.

At one point in the series, Rick is sitting at his son Carl's bedside. This is after Carl has recovered from being nearly killed by a deer-hunting bullet. Rick takes off his hat and has Carl try it on. When he is well again, Carl asks his parents if he can learn how to shoot a gun. He takes it as a coming of age. A gun will finally make him a man—and not just any man, his father's man, the one who will assume his father's leadership responsibilities in due time.

Oh, and Carl was shot by a hunter from another group of survivors who lived on a farm ranch. The hunter, taking full responsibility for his actions, takes Carl and his parents to the farm. Its owner, Herschel, is the family's patriarch. He is a veterinarian and is therefore the closest one can get to a doctor, on account of the world having ended and all, so he offers to operate on Carl. Eventually, Rick's entire gang becomes guests of the ranch. They're offered board and lodging, and in exchange they help out with the chores. (Glenn the Asian guy also goes out to town to fight off zombies for supplies.) Eventually, they get too involved in the ranch and start feeling as though they owned it and were not guests of it. Herschel makes it clear that he expects them to be on their way once Carl has fully recovered.

But Rick says no, although he understands where Herschel is coming from. The place is nice, safe, secure, has defenses, and food and water are accessible. So they continue to insist on staying indefinitely, negotiating with Herschel. But he's having none of it.

And the kicker: a member of Rick's group finds out that Herschel keeps zombies in a barn on the ranch. The zombies are fed chickens everyday. Herschel still thinks of the zombies as people, and he says modern medicine will eventually find a cure for them. And they're undead, so they can afford to wait. (Herschel has not been informed of the destruction of the CDC at this point.) Rick thinks it's too much of a risk, so, despite it being Herschel's ranch, they break the barn doors open and kill all of the zombies inside. Herschel is on his knees and weeping.

This story's been told many times before.

Questions evoked by Pinoy primetime TV

(Specifically, tonight's episodes of My Binondo Girl and the first five minutes of Nasaan Ka, Elisa?)

• Jesas, who told Kim Chiu she can act?
• And while we're talking about Kim Chiu, could somebody please tell whoever does her makeup to go easy on the pencil. Surely her brows can't be that bushy. (If they are, I apologize for the remark.)
• Kim Chiu, playing the formulaic rich girl, and some dude playing the equally formulaic rich douche courting the formulaic rich girl and screwing up, are fighting because he wants to change her car's tire but she doesn't want him to. THEY'RE FIGHTING ABOUT CHANGING A TIRE.
• What's a CEO doing having documents delivered to him by a security guard (or glorified doorman)?
• Hee hee. Villain, identified by the inordinate amount of bling on her neck and the scowl on her face, arrives just in time to hear the protagonists talking about her suspiciously. She hides outside the office door, close enough to eavesdrop, and times her entrance for maximum dramatic effect. Bravo.
• It's nice how a girl on the second floor of a sprawling mansion can still hear her parents bicker downstairs well enough to come down and tell them to please, please, stop.
• That's one fashionable police chief, and one stylish way to serve a search warrant.
• With the obvious exception of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, no one should be subjected to this kind of TV, especially while seated on the headrest of the driver's seat of an air-conditioned bus hurtling down Quezon Avenue at nine in the evening. 

Entourage Season 8 [SPOILERFEST]

Ari and Melissa are separated now. Melissa tells Ari...

...that she's seeing somebody...

...Chef Bobby Flay.

Eric and Sloan broke up at the end of last season, and now she's pregnant, and it's his, but she's leaving for New York anyway.

Johnny's getting his own made-for-TV movie on CBS Primetime.

Avion goes public, and Turtle becomes a millionaire.

Melissa files for divorce, but Ari quits his job and convinces her to try again. They move to Venice for a year. (Watch past the closing credits and you'll find out John Ellis is retiring and offers Ari his spot.)

E and Sloan look like they're getting back together.

And Vince is getting married to a journalist he first had drinks with 24 hours earlier.

E and Sloan hop on the plane Vince paid for. Vince tells him they can go anywhere they like. Vince and the rest of the gang head to Paris, where the ceremony will be held.

I can't wait for the movie.

I passed the Bar!

Literally.

Ever wonder why they're called the bar exams? The part of the courtroom from the seats for the legal counsels up to the judge's bench is separated from the rest of the room by a partition called the bar. Only lawyers are allowed to pass the bar from the seating area for spectating citizens, thus the term.

It's not every day you get a chance to cross the bar in a normal courtroom, much less the en banc session hall of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. So when my Journalism class went there on Wednesday to learn about court reporting, I jumped at the chance.

We also got to ask Midas Marquez, spokesperson of the Supreme Court, a few questions. Apparently the Philippines is one of the few highest courts in the world that have a public information arm. Unlike the two other branches of government, the judiciary is supposed to be very reclusive and silent, perhaps to prevent accusations of prejudice and bias.

Photos of me at the podium that counsels use during hearings:

For as long as I remember I've always wanted to become a lawyer, and that's what my dad wants for me, too. Is it weird to be what your father wants you to be? I reckon it is, but then again, my knowledge of the matter is informed mostly by Hollywood movies and TV series whose plots revolve around the son struggling to succeed in life as his dad hounds him by saying, "You should have listened to me and gone into this or that; you would have been better off then."

One day, middle seat, one day.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? appreciation post

Must get new episodes soon.