The Lettermen

The Lettermen are a group of three guys who sang a lot of hits way back 45 years ago, they are quite popular with the older generations like my father, he used to listen to the lettermen a lot during his days, but for me I think they sound old, not that they sound like old men but listening to their music makes you feel like you were living in the sixties. My father has a copy of every lettermen record album at home, and I’m talking about the black discs as big as plates where it plays music while spinning under a needle, amazing how these antiquities work. But unfortunately his records are now mere memorabilia items after record players went extinct during the turn of the millennium, now my father has only one lettermen music cd to listen with which amazes him how the thing works the same way his record artifacts does to us. I do have one lettermen mp3 in our databank “you’ll never walk alone” but I’d rather not let my father hear it else complicate him more with digital technology.

The lettermen gave a show in our little city last weekend, and after listening to their music way back when he was my age, my father had to see their show for nostalgia’s sake. Me and my brother were not too keen on joining them though because we only had been living half as long as the lettermen’s singing career but my father did convince us to go anyway. We took a cab because I felt if we drove to the theater, I could have also drove myself nuts looking for a place to park, and when we did get to the theater the lobby was full of rich old people in a glamour and jewelry showdown. I had five bottles of beer with ariel earlier that afternoon and I was now hungry, there was a little concession stand at the lobby which served pasta, my brother too was hungry but he is far worse than me being a loner, the rich crowd drove him sick. He took me instead to this back alley road from the theater that led to a little peasants hut, he treated me for some bread and noodles there and we talked about how phony the crowd in the theater was.

We had numbered seats on our tickets for the show but for all things stupid, our numbered seats were the farthest seat on the other end of the theater walls anyway. And when we got to our seats, some old lady was sitting on my seat, she asked me if she could sit in my place so that she could be with her friends, but I insisted on my seat though, I wasn’t paying five hundred bucks for me to play nomad inside the theater.

The view from the far end of the theater was worst, but at least I could stand from my seat or jerk my head left and right without bothering anybody from behind. The lettermen came up on stage and sang versions of their songs “cant take my eyes off of you” “the way you look tonight” “put your head on my shoulders” hell if only I could get hold of a beer.

The show ended around midnight, we rode back home with our parents. The lettermen were to have another show in cebu the following night so my parents took the first flight to cebu the next morning to get front row tickets to their show, but my father said it was pretty much the same as the one they did back home. My parents stayed in the same hotel with the lettermen and my father was able to get one of his records signed.

Only tony butala signed on the record case because he’s the only original member of the lettermen left. The other two replacement lettermen were mark preston and donovan tea. Mark preston looked pretty much like a chef, maybe it has something to do with his mustache because his smile looked like those Italian chefs you see in pasta cook books. And the other guy's name sounded like a fancy flavor for a tea, I felt I must have heard somebody ordering a donovan tea in starbucks.

Got Balls?

I had to take a flight back home from manila this noon, I didn’t have much to do this morning though, I had breakfast in this mcdonald’s about 4 blocks away from my hotel and I must have stayed there for about an hour. I didn’t plan to kill a lot of time in that place, in fact I didn’t even like the people inside the place. It was a Sunday morning and it was full of families trying to look so happy together and their happy mood just didn’t suit my gloomy disposition, I’d rather wish the was place empty. The only reason why I was there was because they served bottomless coffee, and you don't get to see much mcdonalds around serving bottomless coffee for breakfast. There's this other Mcdonalds branch where I ate the morning before yesterday's and I even frequent the place quite often because it is near a friend's office, but then they are as not as generous with their coffee. You' d even have a hard time finding a seat in this branch because it is right in front of some major road junction and this place is always full and you’d end up sharing a table with some other customer who’s not even eating anything. I swear a quarter of the customer headcount I made inside this place aren’t eating anything at all, like they’re waiting for godot or their coffee refill or something.

Anyway, the only thing I had to do this morning was to buy this styrofoam ball for my sister for her art class, they’re going to make a little earth from the ball and she couldn’t find one for herself back home, and if it were not for this blasted ball I could have had the whole morning off. I was convincing her that she could have instead bought these same styrofoam balls these fishermen use as buoys for fishing nets, but she told me that these buoys had one big hole underneath it. Hell if I were in that art class, I could have convinced the teacher I was going to make the prehistoric earth and I’d make that hole as the crater of the asteroid that struck earth and wiped the dinosaurs, and next thing I’ll do I’d just glue sand all over the Styrofoam ball and tell the teacher it’s the dust brought about by the impact, that the explosion was so strong that it’ll take years for the sand to settle down, and it can also save me time from patriotically painting our little country on that spheroid. I should be having an A+ for creativity.

I got her Styrofoam ball from this bookstore and I had to hold it in my hand all the way to the airport, I can’t stuff it into my luggage anymore because the damn thing takes up too much space. I looked like some athlete showing off their balls from whatever ball game they play and not just those between their legs, well except that was a ball for some stupid art class and neither do I play any ball game.

Anyway I took a cab to the airport, the taxi driver started some dumb conversation with me and from what he was talking, this driver was yet the best sucker who drove me in years. He told me he was from cebu and stuff and this was just this 35th day driving a cab in manila. He was wearing a very formal attire and he looked and sounded all too kind to be making up his stories, and you’d feel sorry for him too, maybe because he told me about his dreams and stuff especially that part when he told me that someday he would like to work as a crew for a ship and go around the world and if he saves enough dough, he’d go back home to cebu and start a little business for himself, though I felt like a sucker too for buying his story. I didn’t tell him what work I had, I had to make up some crap about me, like my work was also terrible just to make him feel sorry too. If he asked what the styrofoam ball was for, hell I could have made up another story for that and I swear he'll buy it too.

Funny 35 days ago I also took a cab to the airport here in manila to catch a flight home, I could have heard his story a month ago.

2006

My brother took this picture of me wearing my blue Hawaiian shorts, my green jacket and this yak herder’s cap my parents got from mount everest last month, and this is the streets of New Year ’s Eve at 12:30 in the morning.

To tell you the truth, I was already asleep 10pm earlier that night after a couple of games in the computer and some beers. I wanted to let the new year pass while sleeping but my brother broke my slumber because he wanted me to see him burn away the fortune he just spent in these fancy mortar fireworks for midnight, he lit them outdoors and they were great, but he was such in a hurry to light one set of mortars that he placed these cannons on uneven grounds, the first blasts blew up to the sky but then the mortar fell sideways and started firing to my mother’s flower bed, then after about two blasts the goddamn cannons jerked and faced me and shot one shell unto my feet, goddamn shell blew to a fiery explosion burning my right foot. Maybe it didn’t burn my right foot because it does look pretty normal in the picture and I still had the guts to run around the streets past midnight, it did have a slight burn the pain which I forgot after having some more bottles of beer later, but it did itch like hell and I reckon it must be the science of pyro-chemistry and dermatology.

Happy New Year to all.