The Philippine Online Chronicles

Karl R. De Mesa (personal blog: Trust Your Black Shirt) is one of the more radical and vocal writers in the Philippine horror scene, a writer who draws from a childhood grounded in urban reality to come up with tales of supernatural horror. His new book "News of the Shaman" from Visprint Enterprises, a collection of novellas, will be out in major bookstores this month. He is also the newly minted Executive Editor of Playboy Philippines, and part of several bands: Biscochong Halimaw, Ninja Empire, and Gonzo Army. He also co-edited Demons of the New Year (which we reviewed here and here) We spoke to him not long ago about his childhood, his beliefs, and his writing process. This is the first part of our interview.

Pinoy Pop: I gather you're a believer in the supernatural? I gather at much from your introduction to Demons of the New Year.

De Mesa: You mean creatures and the like? I used to be very… mixed up, let's put it that way. I mentioned this once in an essay in Likhaan: My parents used to be NPA urban agents. So we used to move around a lot, every three months at the most, sooner if we were spotted by surveillance. It was very tough for a child in that environment to make any friends, so my outlet was a lot of action figures--marami akong G.I. Joe dati, at mga Voltron, Voltes V, Matchbox--and when I got old enough I started gravitating towards the occult. I'd experienced a lot of strange events by then--I'd get sick all of a sudden, or I'd natter on to my parents about the dark man I'd seen in the trees. The first venture I made into organized occult material was a Pranic Healing course, basic energy healing. From there I went on to Tai Chi, meditation, enchanting… I also did research on my own on topics like witchcraft. I joined up with a lot of f*cked up kids who studied a lot of demonology, and I remember when they'd try to summon something there would be this smell, like sulfur or sh*t, and I felt we'd actually brought something over… a few days later, our neighbor seemed to be possessed.

Were there any repercussions to any of this?

I think we did a lot of harm in those days. One of my later teachers said my aura was black, like I'd done a lot of bad things in the past. But, yes, sometimes these things--say, wishing ill luck on an ex-girlfriend--they come back to you. That's just basic karma.

I take it that not everything you've done counts as "bad stuff"…

After college, before I went into journalism, I supported myself by reading fortunes. I had a knack for divination, as it turns out.

Did you tell your customers the truth?

Not all the time. It was hard. Women would come in and ask questions about their boyfriends and husbands and ask me when the cheating would stop… and while you can see some stuff clearly, others you can't, but they don't want to hear that. Sometimes you make it up as you go along: "avoid donuts" "your lucky number is 72", things like that. It entertained them.

Does being a believer in the supernatural make it easier or harder to write about them? I mean, a lot of your writing revolves around this kind of dark, occult scene.

It makes it easier. It's like I'm reporting on this stuff. For "Damaged People", I took a lot of events from things that happened to me and my friends, only making alterations for dramatic purposes.

But doesn't writing about supernatural creatures that you believe in worry you? I'd hate to cast an evil creature as a villain in a piece. I mean, people tend to take it against a writer if you paint them in a bad light.

Oh, I don't have any qualms about that. Even if the stories might be based on reality, at the end of the day it's fiction, not reportage.  When I depict evil in fiction, it's a bit harder since it needs to be larger than life, although sometimes… There's a story about rape in "Damaged People". That one had invented scenarios but the underlying evil was real.

So basically you take a real premise and then it is the furniture, so to speak, that is fictional?

Sure. For instance the two of us got into a fight right now, I could use that as a basis for a story but change things around it, the setting , the means…

Do you change the names, when you're adapting a real life incident into fiction?

Sometimes, if necessary, though in "Damaged People" what I did was just use the first letters of the names. This is why those who were part of the stories I wrote about in that book know who they are.

Doesn't that cause tension with your friends and acquaintances?

Oo naman. But in a way, most of them are still glad that they're immortalized and I think they're mature enough to understand.

Did they know from the start that you were a writer, and that you tend to write about people around you?

Yes, although maybe some of them would be surprised to see themselves in my fiction. But a lot of my friends aren't really big fiction readers. My family doesn't read my fiction for the most part. I'd tell them about a launch and they'd say "okay" but not show up, which is a good thing in general, because some things I've written, especially my non-fiction essays about growing up in the Philippine left, might make them angry.

Is it a different experience, writing about these experiences without even the venner of fiction?

Very. People have asked me why I don't just become an overtly political writer. The truth is, hindi ako natutuwa sa ganoon eh. That's actually the feedback I received from writing workshops: "Ikaw, ang dami dami mong material, bakit hindi ka na lang magsulat tunkol sa status ng Pililipnas?" Eh hindi talaga ako natutuwa eh.

Did you ever try doing that sort of writing? Non-fiction, or mainstream fiction?

Sure, in college--but it shows kung hindi mo trip yung material.

You obviously have a clear idea of what you'd like to write. So how then would you define yourself as a writer?

I would very much like to describe myself, and be described, as a horror writer. I would like to explore that genre. I used to be all about fantasy, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in the past, and roleplaying games had a lot of influence on my early fiction, providing a sort of easy template. Those were good times, but the horror genre is where I'd put myself now.

[Image source: Base from Demons of the New Year. Copyright holder/s maintain appropriate rights.]

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