A belated 'Thanks, man!' for Alexis Tioseco

I first met Alexis in 2003, sometime in August, when I was a volunteer assigned to theater operations for the 5th Cinemanila International Film festival.

As I remember it, I was standing by the information desk (or was it the railing?) at Greenbelt 1 when a guy suddenly approached me. “Are you R-M-N of Pinoydvd?," the fellow asked. “Yup," I replied. “I figured it was you from your name. Hi, I'm Alexis Tioseco. I'm commentary." Pinoydvd.com, of course, is the online message board devoted to—what else?—DVDs, film, and other related stuff. I had stumbled upon the site one fine day while researching on what brand of DVD player to get. So that was how it all began, and that was how I first got to know Alexis. After that initial meeting, we would frequently chat online via Yahoo Messenger. The odd thing was, now that I look back, I don't think we actually ever talked seriously about film! I remember him telling me how much he hated studying finance and how much he dreaded taking his exams the next day. I remember, bored as hell, I wrote as my status message “is anyone out there?" when suddenly his window pops up saying “I'm here. lol." I remember once, for the fun of it, I decided to chat with him in Tagalog, knowing that his grasp of it was, er, limited. ramonsixto: Marunong ka ba mag tagalog? comm: Oo naman. Pinoy ako, buo ang aking loob. May agimat ang dugo ko! comm: lol. ramonsixto: haha. While I appeared to be laughing, I was actually just bluffing. I had no idea where that line of his actually came from, or that it was actually from a song by Bamboo. I was such a dork. The other thing that Alexis and I shared in common, aside from our interest in film (though he was more rabid than I was for sure), was narcolepsy: he and I had the tendency to fall asleep while watching a movie. If you asked him what he thought of so-and-so film and he tells you that he fell asleep, he really meant it. Literally. It didn't necessarily mean it was bad, it's just that he really did fall asleep! (Remember Edades, Alexis?) This prodded me to say in my Friendster testimonial to him: “It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who falls asleep while watching a movie." His response after reading it? (in jest I hoped) “You bastard!" When I saw Ato Bautista's Sa Aking Pagkakagising Mula sa Kamulatan at the NCCA, I was so blown away that I simply had to share my sentiments and the first person I texted, naturally, was Alexis. Same with Gil Portez' Homecoming. I was just one of three other people inside the theater and I texted Alexis again saying that I wanted to just walk out pero sayang naman binayad ko. So I ended up sitting through that piece of ... I was lucky enough that I was able to meet and be friends with some of Alexis' cohorts though I always maintained, and still maintain, that am really just a “guest at the table" with Alexis graciously sponsoring me. I remember how and when I met Joey Fernandez, aka joeydaninja, a moderator on Pinoydvd.com and founder of Brash Young Cinema. Before I even met him in person, I was already chatting with him on YM. One time, after a long online conversation that was most likely about Corporate America, Joey mentioned that he just received a text invite to an event at Mowelfund where Fernando Poe, Jr. was the guest of honor. He prodded me to go but I was ambivalent. Afterwards, Alexis was online and I told him about it. He said that he got the same text invite and that he was attending. Not long after, I found myself in the company of both Alexis and Joey (who I got to meet finally) at the Mowelfund Plaza. But since we all arrived late, we missed out on most of the affair but we did get to catch a glimpse of FPJ and Susan Roces inside the darkened screening room watching Zamboanga! I remember now, also, how and when I first met Quark Henares. I was in school, during one of my night classes, when my friend said that Quark was giving a talk upstairs. “I must introduce myself," I blurted, feeling a bit excited. “Hi! I'm the brother of Paula." (My sister was sent to interview Lyle Sacris and Quark a few days prior at the LVN compound for the movie First Time) “How is she?" “She'll be going to Tokyo to interview Sofia Coppola on Lost in Translation." The reaction that it elicited from Quark, which included the blurting out of an expletive inside the classroom, was simply priceless. Of course, I told Alexis too that my sis was set to interview Sofia in Tokyo and, as expected, his reaction was not unlike that of Quark, which also included the blurting of expletives. I remember now, also, how and when I first met Raya Martin. Once upon a time, I was maintaining a journal on Livejournal (LJ) where I pretty much just rambled away, most of the time incoherently. Alexis, who also maintained one, had Raya—username direk—as an LJ friend. I added him because I found his journal quite unique: the userpic was a Larry Alcala-like cartoon, the text was in typewriter font, and the posts were written in screenplay style. I once posted on my LJ a message in Russian that I culled from a spam email and Raya commented that damn, he could no longer understand Russian! (He supposedly was able to translate a phrase but of course there was no way for me to verifyit). When Raya posted that a preem of his film Maicling Pelicula Nañg Ysañg Indio Nacional was to be held at the Shang cinemas as part of the French Film Festival, I immediately marked my calendar. When the screening was over, people were milling around the cinema lobby as Raya gave out movie postcards. He reached out his hand and gave one to me. “I'm Ramon, aka powder keg," I said. “I know," then he smiled. To this day, I still wonder how Raya knew who I was, considering that I never posted pics of myself on my journal, but I suspect that Alexis had a hand in it somehow. Since then, other names have been added too: Khavn, John, Tengal, Lav, Bono... When I was being tracked down and threatened by someone I'll call by the name Dave, on what would turn out to be a really unbelievable day, I received a text from Alexis that read, "Dave gave me a call asking for your number but I did not give it." It was a kind gesture that I truly appreciated and something that I really will never forget. I don't think I've ever expressed my appreciation for that one but let me do it now, albeit belatedly: Thanks, man! - GMANews.TV RELATED POSTS Remembering Alexis On September 1, 2009, film critic Alexis Tioseco and his girlfriend film journalist Nika Bohinc were slain in their home in Quezon City. Three friends pay tribute to Alexis on his first death anniversary.
For Alexis Alexis was the closest I had to a younger brother. I'm glad that I was able to tell him that and how much I loved him before he died. - Erwin Romulo remembers Alexis Tioseco