The Wedding Singer

Just a few days ago, I had drinks with my friend BJ in this Italian restaurant right in the heart of the business district. This place is noteworthy in our shortlist of go-to places as it offers the cheapest beer we've managed to find so far-- just SGD4.90 for any of these three brands: Tiger, Heineken, and Corona. As usual, it was BJ who discovered the place as our designated Magellan of cheap booze. He just moved here to Singapore from Manila last April and it seems that he's already a run of the whole country. I swear, he's gone to more places and attended more parties in the four months he's been living here than in my two and a half years.

The Italian restaurant has, as expected, some Pinoy service staff. It's a small place so there's only two of them plus one local. There's Arnold, a college graduate whose last job before leaving the Philippines was as a sales agent in a computer company. Kit's the other one. She has a passing resemblance to Ruby Rodriguez which at first having met her, I totally missed. I couldn't see how though. I mean, Ruby Rodriguez has quite a distinctive look. If you see someone who looks like her, you go, "Hmmm, she looks like Ruby Rodriguez." I went, "Hmmm, she looks like someone famous and overweight. Someone who uses her plump frame for comedic effect. Someone who's been doing her shtick for 18 years now in a noontime show. But who?" Kit also has a college degree. She's a bit on the quiet side and it's Arnold who most often hovers near our table caught in our gravitational field and risks being admonished by the owner for socializing with the guests which is always a big no-no. Arnold has said that he only agreed to work in a restaurant as he has the expectation of moving on to something better in terms of employment. The proverbial "stepping stone," if you will. I assume too that Kit has the same overall strategy as Arnold's or she wouldn't otherwise deign to wait on tables when she has a degree in, believe it or not, Computer Science.

So BJ and I have had a few. Then, he talks about a colleague who's getting married in Bali next month.

"You know if you want, you can sing at the wedding," BJ said.

"Huh? Why would they want me to sing?"

"They don't have a wedding singer yet."

"Well, they can check the yellow pages, right?" I put forward.

"Those guys are expensive. They want somebody cheap. Don't you want it? It's something to do. Well, you won't get paid but you get to go to Bali for free."

"By singing for my meal?"

"Yeah, it's only one set -- forty minutes, tops."

"I don't know," I said. "There are just no guarantees that I won't, you know, suck. Just in case you don't know despite the fact that we've known each other since the late nineties, I'm not a professional singer."

"Jesus. Alright. I was just trying to help you out since you're unemployed and all. Besides, if I had a good singing voice, I'd totally do it."

And on that note, I bought BJ a beer.

King Kong Ain't Got Shit on Ate Luds

So I'm back here in Singapore. I'll divulge soon the circumstances which lead to me to fly back here last Monday but let me tell you first that last night, a friend told me that I should check out this Vilma Santos video in YouTube by keying in "Where's the party?" Ah, yeah. Hilarity will ensue. However, another video of Vilma Santos caught my eye and got me thinking.



What got my attention was when I was six minutes and fifty five second seconds into the video of the late, great Inday Badiday interviewing Vilma Santos in the former's TV program Eye to Eye. Ate Vi was out promoting the movie Pahiram ng Isang Umaga.

So, Ate Luds just tries to spice things up by asking a very interestinq question: "Kung saka-sakali Vi, sinong sasabihan mo nang 'Pahiram ng isang umaga?'"

Vilma is put on the spot. She's like a deer caught in a truck's headlights about to be squashed into a mad slush of blood and hair. She tries to bide her time and says, "Huh?" And then, being the rapier wit that she is, she adds, "Meron na akong umaga eh."

Take that, Ate Luds.

But no, Inday Badiday is not easily discouraged by such a clever retort. She thinks that Vilma Santos has just obviously misunderstood the question. Hell, Ate Luds has to make an effort in breaking the question to its basic elements and provide more insight into what she means. Clearly, there must be six million ways to answer the question, "Sinong sasabihan mo nang 'Pahiram ng isang umaga?'" And so she frames the question into terms which even a moron will understand: "Hindi, kung saka-sakali lang na bigyan ka ng choice kung saka-sakali, sinong gusto mong sabihan ng 'Pahiram ng isang umaga?' Hindi naman kinakailangan maging Filipino, pwedeng ibang...mga taga-ibang bansa?"

Holy fucking shit! Inday Badiday just naturally assumes that Vilma Santos is having a hard time in answering her question because Ate Vi has n0 idea that her decision of the identity of the person she will ask the question to is not restricted to the condition that this same person be born outside of the Philippines! Phew! Thanks for clarifying that Ate Luds! So, there are no restrictions. Who in the world will you ask, Vilma Santos, the question: Sinong sasabihan mo nang 'Pahiram ng isang umaga?'

Fuck, wait. The question is in Filipino and so only someone who speaks Filipino can understand the question when Vilma Santos asks this. The odds are more than good that someone from the Philippines will understand the question but billions of other people belonging to other nationalities, will just hunch up their shoulders in the universal gesture of saying, WTF? My god, Ate Luds. Once again, you have driven me into the realm of madness. I am without any means of reclaiming my sanity back.

We Are Rocket Scientists

There's nothing more I hate than other people suggesting stuff to me because they presuppose that I'm going to like whatever it is they're pimping. Having said this, The Late Show with David Letterman had the band We Are Scientists on last Monday and its live performance of the song After Hours made me wet my pants. The song is as addictive as crack -- it hooks you from the start with the jingle-jangle guitars and then the incessant jungle drumming akin to the accelerated hearbeat of an adolescent opening his first porn magazine just seals the deal.

I went on YouTube soonafter because I just had to hear the song again and again. Yes, the video of After Hours is there and, yes, that's Katrina Bowden who plays Cerie in 30 Rock as the hot chick the We Are Scientists duo (bassist Chris Kain and guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray) are both after. As entertaining as the video is, the band showcases its collective talents more effectively when performing live and here's its performance of After Hours in Later with Jools Holland.



Speaking of which, here are a couple of rocket scientists who were contestants on Wheel of Fortune. See what I did there? I made the connection between the band We Are Scientists and the Wheel of Fortune contestants using the word scien...No? Okay.