Waxing Poetic, Waxing Inebriated

This here is a snapshot of my favorite joint in town called Burby’s.

If you don’t already know where that is, I won’t tell you. You might flock there en masse and we’ll never get a good table. And that’s primarily why I love it so much. They’re never really full even on Saturday nights. It’s not too high class, unlike some places where people show up to gawk and be gawked at. You can wear a t-shirt you’ve owned since high school and not feel alienated. So it’s like drinking in your own living room but at the same time you’re still out.

Not only do they have the best chicken fingers, they also serve a dark lager called Black and Tan that comes in a TALL (and I mean tall) glass. That kids, along with a side of blue flaming Devil’s Advocate will get the job done faster than you can read that sign hoisted above your head.

Oh yes! The sign. And I’m not talking about that Ace of Base song we all danced to at one point. I consider it a perk: a bar with an odd (and most likely inadvertent) sense of humor. If the conversation goes wry, it’s there to crack me up. And when I’m too intoxicated to catch the irony, I just look up at their wrought iron chandelier and stare. The only letdown is that they’re closed on Sundays. My theory is that that’s when they turn the place into a chapel and celebrate mass.

I mean how else would you explain “God is good” in the watering hole?

 

Turning Japanese?

A few months ago, a friend of mine took a trip to Japan and came back with this photo taken from a hotel in Osaka. A long debate ensued over the usage of the word ”criticize”. In case of emergency, do we take the staircase to the first floor, look each other from head to toe and start making brash comments about how the other person looks? Or do we go to the first floor (still with the staircase…it better be one of those portable ones or this would be one strenuous operation) and start complaining about how the wallpaper mismatches the overall design of the room?

Let’s face it, Filipinos don’t always write in the best of English. The grammar is sometimes off. I’ve seen essays with a syntactical war raging between subjects and verbs. Melanie Marquez? Come out, come out, wherever you are! But do we randomly pluck words from the dictionary for use in a completely unrelated context? In hotel signage no less?

Here’s another interesting anecdote about Japan. Did you know that their train stations have sanitation crews specialized in clearing out suicides from the tracks? And they have a time limit as well. Thirty minutes and there should be no trace of human remains anywhere (This is just a good a time as any to stop whining about our jobs). I’ve always been aware of their suicidal culture, what with Harakiri and Kamikaze alone. But this I didn’t see coming.

Has anybody seen the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Happening? I wonder if the pandemic would be handled more efficiently had it happened in Japan as opposed to the US East Coast.

 

A Week of Nothing

And I will keep true to the title of this post. Due to my ongoing verbal constipation, I will temporarily cop out from writing 2000-word epics. But here’s a recount of the utterly useless (yet slightly amusing) things I’ve encountered this week:  

…Curious as to what’s playing on my company’s foreclosure department wait music songlist? It is, I’m sorry to say, the Backstreet Boys’ single Quit Playing Games with My Heart. Interesting choice of muzak. The message being, “while waiting on hold to know if you’re getting kicked out of house and home, allow us to entertain you with Nick Carter’s nasal crooning.” Doesn’t inspire much confidence.

…EDSA billboard alert #1: Dingdong Dantes’s Bench ads are getting raunchier by the hour. The one near the MRT Guadalupe Station is of particular interest. He is featured laying with his legs sprawled wide open wearing nothing but a pair of Bench underwear. With that we can clearly perceive that the euphemism of his first name does not duplicate itself on the piece of clothing he dons. Incidentally, the billboard is not 200 meters away from the San Carlos Seminary. Can I just say, I love this city. There’s never a dull moment.

…EDSA billboard alert #2: Another one advertising cosmetic enhancement. In block letters it quotes, “Because no woman over 21 should look her age.” I took offense in that for some reason. But I think the intensity of resentment felt over the ad is directly proportional to the number of years passed since the age it specified.   

…Most common symptom of boredom: entry topics centered on signage passed on the way home from work.

…Funny cab story courtesy of a friend at work: On her way home, she remembers to say her prayers. She instantly does the sign of the cross. Cab driver notices and seeing that she has her IPod earphones on, assumes she would not hear him. He radios in to his dispatcher, “Ang labo nitong sakay kong Koreana (She’s not Korean). Nagdadasal pero andito naman kami sa tapat ng malls.”

…Went shopping for snorkeling equipment. At the store, I inquired as to whether they had the masks in adult sizes (as opposed to the junior set hanging on the shelf in front of me). The saleslady replies a curt “Out of stock na po ma’am.” I turned my head two degrees to my right and there hanged a truck load of adult snorkeling masks. Saleslady disappears (perhaps at the realization of her blunder. But we can’t really say for sure). There is an ongoing debate over who gets awarded the gold medal for idiocy.

 

The South Answers Back

Somewhere along SLEX

I would like to think of this sign as an affront to the myriad of snooty BF posters that pepper Metro Manila. And it’s not pink! Let’s just hope people won’t miss the irony otherwise we will never see the end of the city’s waste disposal problem.

While we’re gracing the topic of outdoor signage. Ever noticed that billboard along EDSA advertising Havit All Multivitamins whose claim to fame is a supposed youth-in-a-tablet formula? It features Edu Manzano with chest puffed and arms crossed. To his right is picture of a cell. At first glance, I honestly thought it was one of those ‘before and after’ montages. Think Don LaFontaine movie trailer voiceover: All he was was a single cell and then after 50 odd years of  mitosis, he turns into….insert drumroll…..Martial artist. Game Ka Na Ba host. Reviver of the Papaya song. Eduuuu Maaaanzaaaanoooo.