THE ‘NALD LIST--- 27 FACTS YOU NEED OR NEED NOT KNOW ABOUT RONALD JAMES PANIS

Ronald James Panis loves lists. Primary example is this LINK. This was one of the last lists he made but, in fact, he’s been doing it for years now including listing the TOP 20 SONGS every Sunday (from 3PM to 5PM) off a local radio station (DWEB Countdown)in Naga City during our high school years. And might i add, he’s probably doing another list in heaven, right about now, and my theory is this is called Top 10 Angels or something.

That said, we continue with the rest of ‘nald facts--- trivial, personal and most likely, oh-so-difficult to reminisce because of obvious reasons. But fuck--- like every (well, most...) Ronald joke, it’s baduy and at times, hard-to-bear, but heck, it has to be delivered.

And oh, i struggle with the past and present tense because of inconsistency issues with my writing--- plus the more obvious fact that i find it unacceptable to use past tense for a presently good man now gone. Oh well and oh fuck.

1. The Fact That He Loved Lists.
2. The Fact That (Most of) His Jokes Were (Borderline) Baduy. This worked quite well for ‘Nald because in the rare times that he delivers a really, really good joke it felt like it’s the funniest one yet. Mind you, the fact that he was bad at jokes does not make him a less funny man. And to add, his latest joke (well, we are all hoping) is so bad, that we haven’t seen a punchline since Sunday.
3. The Mayon Boys on a Bike. During elementary and high school days, we’d explore Mayon and beyond with our bikes. Along with other friends and classmates namely King, Jam, BJ and some, we’d go to untraveled lands like Cararayan (which obviously we now realize is not really that far)
4. Nald’s Stolen Bike. i believe this happened when Nald was already in UP. Investigation is still on-going.
5. Nald and Iba Juice. After the said bike trips, we’d go to our old house in Mayon (Orchids Street then) and one time, we put in all the iba we got from our trips in the blender. There and then, we had known we had a future in the culinary arts. Alsom!!! (Come to think of it, what’s the english for iba?)
6. Nald Eats Handkerchiefs and One Whole Tablet Papers. Ugh. Only Nald does insanely, useless, stupid and very funny things and gets away with it. (i know, i know, this one is not enjoyable without video)
7. Nald Never Farted in Public. Somebody correct me if i am wrong, but he’s even (more) embarrassed when i did it. Imagine the horror if we did caught him releasing air.
8. Nald’s a Comic Book Buff. He’s not really fond of the DC releases (Superman, Batman and the rest of Justice League America) but is really addicted to the world of Marvel (X-Men particularly)
9. Nald Favorite X-Men is ... Cable. Now, i am not really sure because he had equal unconditional love for every X-Man and Marvel character (superheroes and supervillains alike)... i know i was Gambit then. King is probably Cyclops. Jamael should be Professor X. And Bonks is... Kitty Pride. (Nald would laugh at this, right, Bonks?)
10. Nald’s Call Sign is Anthrax. During high school, we did old school chatting and “eyeball” using the “rad-yo”... For YM and Facebook users, it’s a hand-held device where in you actually TALK to people and well, if lucky and at times, unlucky, you meet these people.
11. Nald’s First EB is with the Galangs--- Weng, Kaka and Gemma. He likes Weng and Kaka, but their mother, Gemma was the hottest of the bunch according to Nald. (Fast fact: we were in highschool, Weng and Kaka were in elementary...)
12. Nald’s favorite band is the Smashing Pumpkins. According to his list, the song Muzzle is his song. But i am pretty sure Disarm, Landslide, Gish and some would also get some love.
13. Nald also loves Radiohead. During his ABS-CBN stint, we talked about using the songs for scoring in our plugs. i hate the fact that he never used them but you can be goddamn sure he had pretty wild ideas if he had the chance to use them.
14. Simply, Nald Loves Music and Bands. From the playlist i made off my winamp here are the bands that I know he loved dearly: (along with Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins): Ben Folds Five, Better Than Ezra, Blur, The Cardigans, The Wallflowers and in the local scene, the Eraserheads and Rivermaya (thank goodness he liked my favorite band)
15. Nald once applied for a job at Jack TV as a segment producer. i always told him this was the perfect job because he’d be actually doing scripts and editing plug for The Simpsons. Ronald Editing Homer and Bart! What happened? He was applying when our company was dealing with retrenchment issues. A month or two early or late, and he would have been my co-employee... 16. Being professional producers now (naks Nald, pro!) working for our respective companies, we dreamt of creating a channel to our liking. It’s called PORN TV. Working tagline included: “Porn, 24/7” among many others... Plus of course, the shows and programs we thought of during our beer sessions. Details cannot be divulged however as Nald would hate the fact that people might steal our idea. (Nald’s porn name would have been....) and the fact that both Becca and Lolet would immediately disown us.
17. Ronald James Panis plays bass for a band called CHEEZEPAPER. In our debut-and-farewell performance (one-night only!), we played Rivermaya’s Panahon Na Naman and Greenday’s Pulling Teeth. For one night, we felt like rockstars. For one night, Ronald was actually in a band! (It does NOT matter now how we fared. Let’s not talk of trivial matters.)
18. Also, he also had to “train” himself (for 3 months?) via the Orpheus School of Music for his bass-skills to play for cheezepaper. Then again, training or no training, we’d have cheezepaper anyway... Sure, it just won’t be a band.
19. The name cheezepaper was coined by the members of cheezepaper at the sala of Nald’s Mayon Avenue residence. As part of the process, we wrote (single) words in pieces of paper and randomly selected them off a bowl... Whatever sounded good to our ears would get the nod... among the nominees was Cheeze Paper Returns (which eventually became cheezepaper)... and some other names that escapes me...
20. Besides his addiction to XMEN, Marvel and his comic books he had equal fondness for TV series titled but not limited to: Fringe (Nald loves Olivia) Big Bang Theory (Nald IS Sheldon Cooper) Lost (I have yet to watch a single episode, but will now surely watch every single one of them), Pushing Daisies (Nald is Ned, well sort of) Flash Forward and V among others. Around half of these series were the “discoveries” of Nald and each and one of them were analyzed in our bi-monthly coffee-sometimes-beer sessions the past couple of years.
21. Nald and Movies. In high school, part of the barkada trip one Saturday was to watch Kahit Konting Pagtingin Part 2--- Nine of us stuck to the original plan and watched the flick starring Sharon Cuneta and FPJ. Nald couldn’t take it and chose to watch the First Knight featuring Richard Gere.
22. Nald and His Favorite Movies. It’s pretty much a long list so i will stick with what i remember during our Top Five All Time discussions. Among his tops were: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and in my book, to be forever replaced as the Eternal Gardens of the Spotless Mind) Fight Club (and no, i won’t talk about Fight Club except with Nald) Mallrats (We both agreed that this is the number one useless, nonsense flick of all time)...
23. Nald owns a 30-gig hard disk named Lacie. A third of which is supposedly of the porn-kind. i only got to copy a third of that percentage. To add: he prefers Japanese and Korean over the Euro and Americans.
24. Nald is the only person i know who understood that it’s ok to have Coke (12 oz, preferably) for breakfast. i will have Coke for breakfast in the next two weeks to honor Ronald.
25. Nald and Weekend Coffee. If his schedule allows, we’d go to The Fort and treat ourselves to a cup of coffee or two. Little did he know that Che and myself only texted him because we needed somebody tall enough so we can charge our laptops. (The theory is that Coffee Bean purposely put the power outlet 8 feet high so that hobbits like us will be discouraged to use the place as tambayan. Little did they know we had a friend as tall as Ronald)
26. The Nald and Noi Rift. Sometime during the week of his 29th birthday i got so drunk that i supposedly had a “little fght” with him that he walked out of the inuman. My point was that he was not being assertive enough in this life--- and that he was too kind of a human being to ever get to places in this tough, tough world. i am so glad we had that rift. i am not too sure if the fight changed him at all but i am pretty sure that i sent the message across. i am not sure if the fight affected his decisions regarding his work and career. All i know is that he ended up with a job he clearly loved doing.
27. Nald is not dead. He just left (too) early, like he usually does. (May gimik pang iba) Oh well and oh fuck, see you, Nald.