Lourd de Veyra: Weather-weather lang yan
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Lourd de Veyra’s middle name is Hanopol, and though he didn’t get to see much of his uncle Mike, he has always been a big fan of the Juan de la Cruz band.
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Basta yung may alak,” he answers when I asked him where he
would want to hold the interview. He comes to the venue with his trademark long
hair worn under a hat and a really cool vintage military jacket. He says it is
his college ROTC jacket, but he never actually took ROTC. He instead wrote
speeches for the commandant to be able to complete his ROTC units to graduate
(which he never marched in as well, and he got his diploma seven years after he
ended college). Sure enough as he sits down, the first thing he orders is a
bottle of red wine. Not the typical image you’d think of when you say four-time
Palanca award winner for Literature, anchor for TV5 news, and social
commentator. Here are 10 things you should know about Lourd de Veyra.
1. His father was a policeman, his mom a pianist, and Mike
Hanopol of the Juan de la Cruz band is his uncle.
His father (now retired) was part of the first batch of
rookie cops to be part of the Western Police District, with Alfredo Lim as the
ground commander. “Pag mahaba ang buhok namin nung kapatid ko, sinasabi niya,
‘ganyan ang buhok ng mga pinapalo namin sa Mendiola,’” Lourd shares about his
father. His mother, “a pianist by profession and dietician by training,” was
actually more strict than his father. He shares he never enjoyed any perks as
the son of a cop and goes on to say, “Matinong pulis yun, hindi abusado.”
Lourd’s middle name is Hanopol, and though he didn’t get to see much of his
uncle Mike (“Tito ba talaga namin to?”) he has always been a big fan of the
Juan de la Cruz band.
Lourd went to Quirino
Elementary School for
grade school, Letran for high school, and UST for college. He started his
master’s in creative writing twice (once in UP, the other time in UST) but only
finished two semesters for both.
2. The cult hit Baboy by Lourd’s band Radioactive Sago
Project was born out of a combination of intoxicating drinks, Ating Alamin ni
Gerry Geronimo, and George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Lourd recalls he wrote Baboy in less than an hour before he
first performed it. The program Ating Alamin on PTV4 and their features on
“pagkakasta ng baboy” made an impression on him and was a big influence on the
song as well. “It’s never performed the same way ever, not even once,” Lourd
shares. The lyrics (since most of it is improvised) are quite flexible, which
is why they performed the song during EDSA Dos and in rallies in Mendiola, as a
metaphor for excesses and abuses.
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Radioactive Sago Project was somewhat of an accidental band.
Lourd was promoting his first book, and instead of the usual reading, he got a
bassist, trumpet player, and drummer to accompany him as back up for a spoken
word performance. “From three instrumentalists then, naging nine na kami.”
3. His best-selling novel Super Panalo Sounds! was 10 years
in the making. It was product of what he calls a “bizarre” ritual where he
spends New Year’s Eve writing.
“Same concept sa talon talon. The idea is you write on the
eve of the new year so that the rest of the year will be marked by industry and
productivity,” Lourd shares. He usually starts writing by 10:30 p.m. of Dec.
31, joins in the countdown celebration for a bit, goes back to writing, and
finishes 10 pages by Jan. 2, then forgets about it by Jan. 3. He realized he
could put it all together and planned to submit the novel for the UP Centennial
Literary Awards (with a half-million-peso prize), but was seven minutes too
late for the deadline. As fate had it, in 2007, his first novel about “how high
and how low you can go when you’re rocking and rolling” was published.
4. Lourd de Veyra in numbers:
17: Age he first tried drugs. “Because of friends, and abysmal
curiosity. There are substances that induce creativity and substances that just
induce violence. Tinalikuran ko na yun.”
4: Number of years he was part of the table tennis high
school varsity team in Letran, where they were consistently NCAA champions. Any
sport in college? “Olympic drinking.”
7: Number of years he was copy editor for Metro Society
magazine. “From a Marxist point of view, okay, ito lang pala nagcocontrol ng
lipunan natin from the turn of the century.”
1: Number of hours it took for him to write his speech for
the UP commencement exercises, where he coined the term “GMG” (Google mo, g***)
for this generation.
38,421: Number of subscribers to the Word of the Lourd
videos on YouTube. Of the 434 videos uploaded, the most viewed is titled Slang,
with 303,202 views to date.
5. Among Lourd’s biggest influences are Dr. Ophelia
Alcantara Dimalanta, Teddy Boy Locsin, and Nick Joaquin.
He was a newspaper scholar in his last two years of college
at UST, supposedly to work with the paper after graduation.When he got his last
check (for book allowances, although in his journalism course, he didn’t have
much books so “yung allowance ko napupunta lang sa ugat ko, pinang-iinom namin,
among other things”), the company that paid for his scholarship was in a hiring
freeze, so he applied as OJT for Today. “Idol ko si Teddy Boy Locsin, if only
for that one photograph nung 1987 flipping the bird. Isipin mo ang gandang
lalaki tapos naka-ganun, sabi ko, I wanna work for that man one day,” Lourd
shares. His very first article was a piece for the lifestyle section on Bea
Lucero and the World Youth Day in 1995. He left Today in 2001 when he won a
writing grant from the NCCA worth P250,000. Since he hadn’t experienced just
bumming around after graduating, he decided to do just that for one year.
His interest in writing started only on his second year in
college. “Sit in lang ako sa creative writing class niya, and then the gates of
heaven opened,” he reveals about the late Ophelia Dimalanta, the professor who
changed his life. “She both demystifies and mystifies literature. Yun yung
klase na sabi ko parang wala na akong ibang gustong gawin sa buhay ko kundi
magsulat.” Until he found out later on, “ang hirap pala magsulat.” Lourd wrote
an essay about her which he finished before she passed away, but was always too
shy to show it to her. “She never got to read it, which is my great guilt in
life.
One of the things that frustrate him are young people who
don’t appreciate what they are given. “Minsan may lalapit sakin, problema niya,
pinapasulat siya ng advertorial tungkol sa washing machine. When in fact gusto
daw niya magsulat ng great Filipino novel. Bull****, ayusin mo muna yang
advertorial mo bago ka mag-great Filipino novel.” Lourd shares an
impressionable statement the late great Nick Joaquin said: “There are no baduy
subject matters. Only baduy writers.”
6. He was once almost down and out with only a three-digit
amount in the bank left to his name. His vice? Gardening.
“For some reason, kung kailan ang bisyo ko ay walang
kinalaman sa krimen, tsaka pa naubos ang salapi ko,” he quips. It was around
2006 when he started to buy and care for ferns, flowers, and fruit-bearing
plants. He says that one plant is not expensive, but when you collect them, it
becomes expensive. His garden was beautifully flourishing when unexpectedly,
typhoon Ondoy hit in 2009. “Yung pinalaki ko at inalagaan kong Traveller’s
Palm, kinailangan kong apakan at gawing bridge to get from one end of the yard
to the garage,” he recalls with a tone of regret in his voice. He has a mark in
his home where the flood hit, and says that every time he gets the urge to make
a mindless purchase, he looks at that mark. “Ah, the futility of material
possessions.”
7. On his fearlessness in sharing his opinion: “It comes
from the fact that nobody actually reads or watches my material.”
Lourd is also known for his criticisms and comments against
some of the country’s most prominent figures, but has never had any case filed
against him. His attention was once called by his TV bosses for wearing an
apron with the face of Kris Aquino on it for his cooking segment in a morning
show. (Yes, Lourd cooks. “Vegetable dishes.”) He got a call from his higher ups
telling him to stop wearing the apron. That incident actually made an
impression on TV5 big boss Manny Pangilinan, so much so that when MVP met
Lourd, he said to him, “Ah, ikaw yung nagsusuot ng apron ni Kris Aquino.”
“Opo.”
8. Lourd can talk about anything and everything under the
sun, but keeps mum when asked about one thing: his love life.
I ask Lourd about this past interview with Cosmo magazine
where he was asked what was the sweetest thing he’s ever done for a girl, and
he answered, “To stay with her for five years.” He gives a puzzled look and
tries to recall when he said that, but later on seems to just accept it. When
asked how he is as a boyfriend, he just shyly answers, “Inertia.”
He shares that he once also thought about having kids, but
is “past” that stage now. “Baog yata ako eh,” he jokes. “Okay na yung mga aso
ko.” He currently has six dogs: Buddy the azkal, Petra, Lloydie (“John Lloyd, guapo kasi siya
eh,”), Tekla, and Brownie, all Lhasa Apsos, and Billy Boy the blind shi tzu.
9. Lourd’s top Pinoy picks:
President: “Ramon Magsaysay. He was the only one who truly
believed in genuine land reform.”
Sports icon: “Samboy Lim. Ang paradox ni Samboy Lim, sobrang
galing niya, pero lagi siyang injured.”
Local restaurant: “Vivian’s Tapsilog sa Project 3, Quezon City.”
Actor: “Ronnie Lazaro. And John Regala. Intense.”
Director:
“Mike de Leon. For consistency of vision, perfectionism, and depth of
material.” His favorite De Leon
films are Batch ‘81 and Kisapmata.
Journalist: “Nick Joaquin. He elevated the idea of reportage
to an art form.”
10. He has one important piece of advice for young men and
women: “Umasal lamang ng ayon sa ganda.”
He has a whole essay on this topic on spot.ph, where he
writes: “Sa mundong pataas ng pataas ang stress levels, dala ng banta ng
climate change, kriminalidad, trapik, polusyon, wala nang mas nakakulo ng dugo
kesa sa isang taong hindi umaasal ng ayon sa kagandahan.” He lists guidelines
that include not posting beach pictures “kung di naman kagandahan ang katawan,”
not putting on fake accents, and not speaking English if you don’t have a good
grasp of the language. (The essay is written in Tagalog, which drives home the
point better.) “Ang masama, ay kung pangit ka na, feeling ka pa,” he says.
In this age of instant everything and access to information
through the Internet, he points out inefficiency is one of the biggest problems
of a lot of young people today. “It wastes other people’s time, wastes your
time, and parang gumawa ka ng sarili mong hukay,” Lourd explains. “Ngayon, konting
lag lang ng pag-load ng page sa Internet, umaangal na kayo. As if naman na pag
nag-load yung page, you’ll be able to produce a great Filipino novel agad.”
Lourd was included in spot.ph’s “Top 10 IT boys” (which also
lists Borgy Manotoc and Erwan Heussaff), to which he says, “Seryoso ba kayo?”
* * *
When asked what more he wants to achieve in his life, he says: “Super
cheesy, but after age 25, tumigil na ako magplano ng buhay.” He is now 37. Not
everyone may be a fan of his work or agree with his opinion, but Lourd is
pretty much taking the road less traveled in terms of life choices and little
decisions made along the way. This road is not for everybody, but it’s people
like Lourd who snap us out of our pretty little worlds and shake us out of our
comfort zones, reminding us that there are many other issues and people that we
may not know of, but should care about.
