Cebu is not for you boo boo.

I came so close to going to Cebu. Doctor Suess probably could of made thousands of rhymes with that name. "Bored? Don't know what to do? Go to Cebu, where the water is warm, and cerulean blue, and where you never wear no shoes. Mango, fandango, tango too! Don't need no wardrobe, your swimsuit will do! Feelin' sad and blue? Go get happy - move to Cebu!"

Now, if you are not familiar with Cebu, you might remember it from some cartoon show. It is where mangoes fall from trees year round. It is where you can still rent an apartment for just over $200. It is an island in the Philippines whose population are 80% Catholic. And I had the contract to go in my hot little hands. All I needed was cashola and daring-do.

To do what? To survive is what. I had applied to Bigfoot Entertainment, a bustling film production company that has yet to make a big-time blockbuster, and is engaged in producing Asian films, and aspires to be doing reality shows. They had two jobs open: One was for a writer producer intern, the other for a reality show writer. One day last week I got a phone call from the head honcho there, a man with an Arabic name. I pitched myself as someone looking to option or sell a screenplay, and as the writer of two reality show treatments.

The pay was horrible. The intern would get $800 a month, but most of that would be used up in paying money back to Bigfoot for lodging, cost of food, the fact that they required (per the contract) that I have a top of the line laptop, and an expensive cell phone with me at all times. It was the perfect job for a 22 year old, or maybe, at the outside - a 28 year old. But a guy in the neighborhood of age 50? Forget it. the Arab said, "No, I already have five people I'm considering for the realtiy show gig. They worked on "Survivor." But he wanted me for the intern job because, though he was 15 hours ahead of me, he could still smell a sucker on the line.

So he asked, in L.A. coolness, "So how old are you?" And I said, "You're not supposed to ask that." And he says, "I know, but how old are you, seriously?" "Around fifty," I replied. "Geesh!" he said. "What?" "Well, the oldest guy we've ever had was forty-two." I asked him how old he was and he said, "forty-two." I was the old man out, but a sucker is a sucker and he says, "Well, I still like you, (old man), so I'll give you a chance."

You can see why I turned him down, though I did say I'd come at first. I couldn't help it, I was desperate. The economy is in bad shape; there simply aren't jobs for guys like me. And if there are, 500 people are applying, and most are younger and smarter than I am. I'm just speaking the truth here, people.

I turned down the job in the modern method, and emailed it to him. He was cavalier, and said I should let him know if I changed my mind. And that, as they say, was that. Goodbye Cebu, hello bankruptcy.

I could have been like Pokemon, running amongst the tropical foilage, working 44 hours and more per week, earning next to nothing, eating mangoes because they would be the only thing I could afford, leading a puritanical life (per the no sex clause in the contract), attending mass ever Sunday I wasn't working (rediscovering my roots), and sweating like mad in the jungle. I would of died of a heart attack and they'd have dumped my body in the lagoon. C'est la vie.

Thank God I said no. It made me happy to say no, but also the lady I'd been dating. She is not an even tempered sort, and I am fairly sure she'd of planted a butcher knife in my back as I headed out the door. Maybe I was running away from her. Maybe I have a fear of intimacy with the wrong person. Maybe I am so sane I could see the handwriting on the wall from two miles off. Maybe I still like myself. And...it could be that Cebu was my personal Shangri La. 

Maybe I need to say no to her too. But it's Easter, and the timing is all wrong. It is the season of martyrs and who am I not to carry my cross and suffer a bit? It is the Catholic way, though I am no longer a Catholic except in the eyes of the church. But, hey, if you are going to go to Cebu, you have to go without any attachments. You have to be free of debt, and of a girlfriend; you have to be independently wealthy. You have to pack shorts, a hat, sunscreen, and sunglasses. You have to be stark raving mad.

So farewell Cebu, hello recessionville. I am back applying to jobs, doing odd jobs to survive. And I can't afford the mangoes in the States.