Early pt 3
For some reason, my life has been inexorably tied to bars and sing-along pub houses. And this is something not too many people know about me.
When I was about, oh, four or five years old, I had this spectacular crush on Leah Salonga. And for those old enough to remember, she used to come up on Uncle Bob’s Lucky Seven Club singing ‘Tomorrow,’ from the musical ‘Annie.’
And so she’d sashay up to the stage in pink chiffon and ribbons in her hair, and I’d sing along with her:
"Tomorrow, tomorrrrow, I love you, tomorrrrow, you’re always a day awaaaaaaaay."
And being naive and all that, I confessed my secret admiration to my mom.
"Mommy, I like Leah"
And my mommy, ever amused by her little boy, wasted no time saying,
"Do you want to meet her in person?"
Of course I did, so I tagged along as my mom drove all the way to her bar.
By the way, you know that saying about doing what you love best for a living so you end up not ‘working’ at all? That’s what my mom did.
Which is why she always opened sing-along bars.
And she took me there to meet Leah.
Upon entering the bar, my mom told me to wait a bit, so I grabbed a seat and sat out in front of a stage waiting for my crush to come out.
Then my mom called her out and bemusedly said,
"O Cheeve, ayan na si Leah, di ba sabi mo gusto mo sya?"
And out came Leah.
Not Leah Salonga.
Leah, the bar girl who worked for my mom.
And if I remember correctly, she was wearing her workday best and a shy, flattered smile.
All my dreams of lace, ribbons, butterflies, and Leah Salonga singing ‘Tomorrow’ kinda went to pieces.
Oh, if you could only see the tantrum I threw.
"That’s not Leah! That’s not Leah! That’s not Leah! I don’t like her! I don’t like her!"
Poor girl slunk back into her quarters .
I kinda feel sorry for her now.
……….
When I was in Prep school, we did ‘We are the World’ for our closing ceremony special number. And being the cocky show-off I was, I constantly reminded my mom about my singing prowess.
She never forgot.
When we got to Tacloban for a business trip (I was in Prep; of course I tagged along), she took me to place where we could spend some quality Mom-Son family time.
A sing-along bar,of course.
So she made me sing, "We are the World" at every bar we went to. But I only ’sang’ at one because I suddenly discovered that thing called ’stage fright’ and made a doddering dummy out of myself during my first performance.
……….
Thankfully, even though I was exposed that early to that sort of thing, I never thought about getting into drinking and smoking. Which is kind of weird when you think about it. All that beer around you and you don’t get the least bit interested.
I’m thankful God spared me that kind of thorn. I don’t think I would have been able to battle that kind of addiction had I started it.
My sins lie in other addictions, though.
Singing, though, is another thing. I still sing. But as far as my mom is concerned, I retired after that ‘We are the World’ fiasco.
Feeling Young
At work the other day, meeting new officemates,
"Are you a fresh graduate?"
Wow.
I really hope he is basing that on looks and not on skills 
Thirsty?
I was watching this show on Discovery Channel sometime ago about a group of friends stranded in the middle of the sea after their yacht capsized.
I was riveted to the tube.
You could just imagine the despair of the group as their tiny blip of a liferaft tossed here and there amidst the eternal expanse of blue froth.
There was no food, no radio, no shelter, no sign of land. All they could do was stay alive long enough to make hope an option.
And to top it off, a shark, sensing their ebbing spirits, tailed them, waiting for its chance at its morbid dinner.
However, the greatest danger to the groups was something else - thirst.
For a few days, they had been able to fight the compulsion to drink from the sea. But in the end two of them could hold back no longer. They drank up the saltwater, enough to fill their stomachs.
It turns out that saltwater has the effect of actually making you thirst more. So the more they drank, the thirstier they got.
In a few hours, both were delirious, driven mad by the exercise. One thought he saw land and threw himself overboard into the gaping jaws of the shark. A few hours later the other guy followed suit.
Another passenger died on the raft and had to be thrown overboard as well.
The two that did survive would never be able to erase the sight of their friends, the sea and shark from their minds ever.
Ironic, no? Water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Makes me think the same way about the world to day. We’re all thirsty. We’re all empy. And we all try to quench our thirst with the saltwater around us.
We drown ourselves in things that are supposed to make us happy - entertainment, cheap titillations, dirty thoughts, adulation, fame, career, power, even friends - but at the end of the day we can’t deny it, we’re thirsty.
I’m thirsty.
Warms my cackles to know that when Jesus met the Samaritan woman, he immediately struck up a conversation about water.
"I have water", he said.
"Drink it and never be thirsty again."
If that ain’t quenching deep down body thirst, then I don’t know what is!
Better Today
Woke up really early today - 6 o’clock AM to be exact.
Know that saying about ‘early to bed and early to rise?’ Couldn’t be truer.
Now if I could get around to ‘no pain, no gain.’
Another Nondescript Day
Another nondescript Sabbath Day….
As usual, I was late for Sabbath School. Lesson review was pretty okay. Speaker almost got my attention (sorry, I have to be honest…).
On a side note, I have to learn how to keep my head in church and use more of my ears instead of my mouth.
Funny thing about Sabbath services here at Pasay is that in some sense they resemble movie houses - you get to choose which "show" to watch.
"Sino speaker sa English Church?"
"Si … "
"Ay sige, sa MAMC naman tayo ngaun. Concert dun ngaun e."
"O kung gusto mo tagalog service, sa Tagalog church nalang tayo."
There has to be something really wrong with us if we get to choose which church to attend each week. If we see church as a show, a program, a presentation instead of a community.
I’m partly guilty, so I’m also ranting about myself.
And oh, by the way, happy Sabbath.
A Picture Sighting!
Oh my, is that a picture on my blog? How weird.
Here’s a picture of me and my roommates during Colin’s graduation last March. Ummm..yes, he’s the one wearing a toga.
I’m second from the right, with a silly grin and a sillier hairdo.
That’s Emer smiling for all he’s worth far left. Rogie’s next to him looking dapper. Sir Joe Rey’s in pink, and to the far right is Ian, who looks like he had bad milk for breakfast.
The sad thing about this photo is that we all left our stations to be in this ‘roommates’ picture(the guys in barongs were ushers, I was a supporting photographer). And a certain someone had something worth…oh, just 40k pesos - stolen.
Oh did I just say that out loud?
DIssipation, PS
And oh, yeah, a quickie.
When I was like three years old, my dad would take me to the park for a morning jog. But I’d mostly stay out of the way and go chase butterflies or something as they huffed and puffed around the place.
After jogs, we’d often pop up at Luk Yuen, a Chinese restaurant.
After twenty so years of not going there, a friend of mine, Grace Torres, suggested we go to this "nice place where they had great noodles and fresh water."
The place turned out to be Luk Yuen.
I was pleasantly surprised.
And so I ordered every dish I could remember from those morning jogs with my dad, and relished those long forgotten flavors now streaming back to the relevant part of my head.
Chicken Siopao. Beef Congee (with fresh egg!), Radish Cake, etc.
Yum, yum.
I began regularly visiting one Luk Yuen branch at Glorietta.
And if you must know, it got blown from end to end during the blast at Glorietta 2 a few weeks back….
p.p.s.
It would be great to offer a few prayers for the families of the victims of the blast.
