Coincidence?

(click to enlarge)

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Abbott and Costello do OPM

This bit I wrote is based on a MAD Magazine piece I saw a few years back featuring a variation of Abbott and Costello’s most famous comedy sketch – Who’s on first? In the piece, the duo was assigned to catalog a collection of music videos before the song titles and artists’ names started to stir some confusion. I thought it would be fun to have the same sketch but using OPM songs and artists instead.

So here’s what it would be like if Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were producers for a Filipino radio station (errr…conversing in tagalog, of course):

Abbott: Costello, unang araw natin dito sa istasyon. Ayos ba? Ikaw ang magiging assistant ko sa paggawa ng playlist base sa mga request.
Costello: Bilib na talaga ako sayo at naipasok mo tayong dalawa dito. Hindi ko alam na mahilig ka pala sa music. Ibig mong sabihin, alam mo lahat ng kanta dito?
Abbott: Oo naman. Ang gagawin mo lang ay sabihin sa akin ang pangalan ng artist at hahanapin ko ang CD sa collection. Sasabihin ko ang pamagat ng kanta tapos isulat mo ang pagkakasunod sunod sa playlist. Maliwanag ba?
Costello: Maliwanag.
Abbott: Medyo kakaiba lang ang mga pamagat ng mga kanta kaya huwag kang malilito, okay?
Costello: Walang problema. Sige, simulan na natin. Eto ang una, Apo Hiking Society. Anong kanta ang isusulat ko?
Abbott: Ewan.
Costello: Ha? Akala ko ba alam mo?
Abbott: Alam ko nga.
Costello: Eh, ano nga ang pamagat?
Abbott: Ewan.
Costello: Teka. Hindi mo nga alam?
Abbott: Alam ko nga.
Costello: Ano nga?.
Abbott: Ewan nga!
Costello: Ah ewan!
Abbott: Tama!
Costello: (pause) Wag na nga. Sunod na kanta na lang.
Abbott: Heto na.
Costello: Naghihintay ako.
Abbott: Heto na.
Costello: Alam ko nga. Ano nga ang pamagat?
Abbott: Heto na!
Costello: Ugh… ‘Yung susunod na lang.
Abbott: Wala nang hahanapin pa.
Costello: Err…mabuti naman. Ano nga ang susunod?
Abbott: Paano.
Costello: Akala ko ba wala nang hahanapin pa?
Abbott: ‘Yun ‘yung nauna.
Costello: Grrrr…’yung kasunod?
Abbott: Paano.
Costello: Wala tayong patutunguhan nito. Ibang artist na lang. Eto, Cueshe.
Abbott: Bakit.
Costello: ‘Yun ang request eh. Anong kanta?
Abbott: Bakit nga!
Costello: Para maisulat ko, ano pa. Ano ba talaga ang kasunod?
Abbott: Sorry.
Costello: Ok lang. Ano nga ang kasunod?
Abbott: Pasensya na.
Costello: Ok nga lang!!! (pause) Sige, iba na lang ulit. Gary V.
Abbott: ‘Di bale na lang.
Costello: Aalisin ko na si Gary V?
Abbott: Hinde!
Costello: Eh, anong kanta nga?
Abbott: ‘Di bale na lang!
Costello: Ano ba ang gusto mong isunod?
Abbott: Gaya ng dati.
Costello: ‘Di bale na lang?
Abbott: Hinde, tapos na tayo doon ‘di ba?
Costello: Ugh.
(pause)
Abbott: Ano yung huling kanta?
Costello: …ewan.
Abbott: Apo Hiking Society, tapos na yan. Sino na ang kasunod?
Costello: Top Suzarra.
Abbott: Sabihin mo na.
Costello: Kakasabi ko lang, Top Suzarra.
Abbott: Sabihin mo na nga.
Costello: Sinabi ko na nga! Hay naku! ‘Yung susunod na lang.
Abbott: Ok.
Costello: Brownman Revival.
Abbott: Dahan dahan.
Costello: Brooowwwnnnn…maaaaannnn…Reeeee…viiii…vaaallllll…ano na nga ang sunod na kanta?
Abbott: Sorry na, pwede ba.
Costello: Oo na. Ano ngang kanta ng Brownman Revival?
Abbott: Sorry na, pwede ba!
Costello: Ang kulit! Oo na nga! ‘Yung susunod na nga lang. 6cyclemind.
Abbott: Sige.
Costello: Ok. Anong pamagat?
Abbott: Sige.
Costello: Sige nga!
Abbott: Hay salamat, nakuha mo rin.
Costello: Grrr…
(pause)
Abbott: Sino na ang susunod?
Costello: Aiza Seguerra. Siguro naman sasabihin mo na sa akin ang pamagat nito.
Abbott: Pagdating ng panahon.
Costello: Ummpph…Kailan?!!!
Abbott: MYMP o Smokey Mountain?
Costello: Ah ewan!
Abbott & Costello together: Apo Hiking Society!
Costello: Eto, Nyoy Volante.
Abbott: Nasaan.
Costello: Yang CD na hawak mo. Anong kanta diyan?
Abbott: Nasaan.
Costello: Ayan sa kamay mo!!! Aahh, kalimutan mo na! (pause) Eraserheads tayo. Alam mo kung anong kanta nila ang nirequest?
Abbott: Minsan.
Costello: Ugh. Minsan?
Abbott: Oo, Minsan.
Costello: (pause) Alam mo ba talaga kung anong kanta ang ililista ko?!
Abbott: Oo nga.
Costello: At sasabihin mo sa akin?
Abbott: Natural.
Costello: Sa wakas!
Abbott: Ayan, alam mo na pala eh.
Costello: Ang alin?
Abbott: Yung sumunod na kanta.
Costello: Anong sumunod na kanta?
Abbott: Huwag mo nang itanong.
Costello: Paano ko malalaman?
Abbott: Sinabi ko na.
Costello: Ano ngang kanta?
Abbott: Huwag mo nang itanong.
(pause)
Abbott: Sinong susunod?
Costello: Kitchie Nadal.
Abbott: ‘Wag na wag mong sasabihin.
Costello: Kanino?
Abbott: Kay Kitchie.
Costello: Ang pamagat?
Abbott: Kakasabi ko lang, ‘Wag na wag mong sasabihin.
Costello: Ang susunod na kanta?
Abbott: Oo nga!
Costello: Ikaw bahala…
Abbott: Sinong susunod?
Costello: Ummm…Ewan.
Abbott & Costello together: Apo Hiking Society!
Costello: Sabihin, wag sabihin…Di na kita maintindihan. Eto, VST & Co.
Abbott: Awitin mo at isasayaw ko.
Costello: Pamagat ang kailangan ko, hindi sayaw. Ano ang pamagat?
Abbott: Awitin mo at isasayaw ko nga!
Costello: Ugh. Yung ibang kanta na lang ng VST.
Abbott: Ipagpatawad mo.
Costello: Ummmppphhh…Ayos…lang…Anong…pamagat?
Abbott: Ipagpatawad mo.
(pause)
Costello: Ummmpppphhh…Ituloy na natin ng matapos na ‘to. True Faith.
Abbott: Huwag na lang kaya.
Costello: Di ko na rin isasama ang True Faith?
Abbott: Bakit hindi? Kasama pa rin.
Costello: Anong kanta nga?
Abbott: Huwag na lang kaya.
Costello: Grrr…Ang labo mo talaga. Sunod, may request dito galing sa isang fan ni Marc Abaya. Alam mo ba kung anong pangalan ng grupo niya?
Abbott: Oo. Kjwan.
Costello: (pause) Ano na?
Abbott: Kjwan nga.
Costello: Di mo maalala?
Abbott: Naaalala ko! Kjwan nga ang pangalan ng banda niya! Naiintindihan mo?
Costello: Ewan.
Abbott & Costello together: Apo Hiking Society!
Costello: Arrgghhh…Konti na lang. Eto, Parokya ni Edgar.
Abbott: Sorry na.
Costello: Ano ba! Kanina pa yang sorry na yan ah!
Abbott: Cueshe?
Costello: Ugh! Seryoso na. Anong kanta ng Parokya ni Edgar?
Abbott: Maniwala ka sana.
Costello: Naniniwala ako kaya tigilan mo na yang kakasorry mo! Wala tayong masisimulan niyan eh!
Abbott: Anong walang masisimulan? Ibig mong sabihin, wala ka pang naisusulat kahit isang kanta sa buong oras na magkausap tayo?
Costello: Paano ko magsusulat, tinanong ko ‘yung kay Aiza sabi mo lang pagdating ng panahon. ‘Yung sa Eraserheads sabi mo huwag mo nang itanong. Di bale na lang ‘yung kay Gary V., huwag na lang kaya ang sa True Faith. Tinatanong ko pangalan ng banda, wala kang sinabi kundi kuwan. Puro ka sorry tapos pag tinanong ulit kita wala kang binibigay na pamagat, puro ewan!
Abbott & Costello together: Apo Hiking Society!
(pause)
Abbott: Hay. Sabi ko na nga ba malilito ka. Sige, balikan na lang natin yung iba mamaya pag nakuha ko na lahat ng CD. Sino na lang ba ang di mo nababanggit?
Costello: Rivermaya.
Abbott: Ummm… Kung ayaw mo, ‘wag mo.
Costello: Aaaaaaahhhhh!!! Ayaw ko na talaga! Di ko na ‘to matatagalan, maghahanap na lang ako ng ibang trabaho! Matutuliro ako pag araw araw na ganito!
Abbott: Anong sabi mo?
Costello: Sabi ko matutuliro ako dito! Tuliro!
Abbott: Ah, Spongecola yan.
Costello: @#$%!&!!!!

🙂

General cleaning

Alright. New Year’s coming and I have some “renovations” to do – this blog being the least of those. It’s been a while since I have updated the log, gonna post new materials both for the graphic and the literary archive soon. I’ve been working on a short story for a couple of months now (one chapter finished so far *sigh*…What? I’m not Stephen King, you know) and I’m gonna start posting the series as soon as I polished them up. In the mean time, feel free to check out the gallery every now and then for some new additions (which was completely errr… revamped to give way to more mature works).

Rundown: I’m still in Thailand, doing some soul-searching (or job hunting you might say, whichever comes first *rolls-eyes-while-whistligng*), taking an awkwardly placed vacation from being a bum, and still wooing my constipated muses.

The number 42 and beyond

I am twenty-four years old and I have IQ worthy of a Mensa membership.

I know that dogs are colourblind and that a byte consists of eight bits. I know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of a cell, how to simplify quadratic equations, and that sentences should not end in prepositions. I know what a hansom is, how to play power chords, and how sfumato works. I can solve sudoku, minesweeper, and cryptograms in quite impressive speed. I know the featural differences between avant-garde and kitsch; and leopards and cheetahs. I know what a Klein bottle and a Mobius strip is, I have read Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and The Book of the Dead, and I know who the greatest hero in Greek Mythology. I can set-up a personal computer myself, program a vcr, and cook a very nice chili con carne. I understand how a car engine works, from displacement to rpm, cylinder size to aerodynamics to center of gravity. I know who The Unabomber, Elliot Ness, Akira Kurosawa, Joseph Stalin, Professor James Moriarty, The Marx Brothers, Freddie Mercury, David Letterman, and Graciano Lopez-Jaena is. I am knowledgable in astrophysics, thermodynamics, trigonometry, psychology, classical literature, and music.

I know agreat deal about how the world works, but for the life of me, I will never ever understand why men fall for the wrong women…

author’s note: In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Hypercomputer Deep Thought generated the answer “42” to The Ultimate Question of Life, Universe and Everything after working for 7.5 million years. The computer, in response to Looquawl’s frustration with The Answer, replied that The Answer was correct, it’s just that they never really knew what The Question was all along.

Grey’s Anatomy

April 18, 2007 9:00 pm., Pier One, SM Mall of Asia

Grey: So, what’s next for you? What do you want now?
Jay: I want a beer.

So there, two hours after we’ve met, was a pitcher of draft beer and a palayok-full of vegetable sticks between me and Grey at the bar alfresco that hot summer evening.

Jay: Now that’s what I’m talking about. Frosted mugs- no ice, no hangovers. One less thing to worry about.

Grey sit silent with that perpetual dumb look on his face. He was cute in the ugly but tolerable sense (well, ugly was an understatement, more like horrible). His eyes and mouth were like holes that stare through endless blackness in contrast to his gray inverted-teardrop-shaped head. He looked like a freak Kermit the Frog mutation of some sort that emerged from collected gray gunk that long-time smokers cough out in the morning after a night of chain smoking. I thought of South park and cows and started giggling modestly.

Grey: What’s so goddamn funny?
Jay: Moo-moo (giggles).
Grey: Huh?
Jay: You remind me of someone. Haven’t I seen you on TV before? X- Files, right?
Grey: Nah, that was my cousin. I was from Dark Skies.
Jay: You freaks all look alike.
Grey: Well, we do reproduce asexually, so we’re all basically clones of each other.
Jay: Asexually? Beh, where’s the fun in that?

I lit up a cigarette and chugged down my beer. Grey noticed I was breathing heavy sighs before I myself did.

Grey: You really were disappointed, weren’t you?
Jay: I guess I really was.

Four hours before, I was denied admission to get a Fine Arts Degree in a state university somewhere in Manila. As their mission-vision states, their priorities are those students fresh out from high school and belongs to the not-so-fortunate classes who can barely afford to go to college. Double-degree fanciers like myself (and one from a prestigious university for that matter… and a money-earning one to boot), as the dean implied, should get a number and get in line in the waiting list- which is a good twelve thousand potential iskolar ng bayan’s.

Grey: Why can’t you go to their school again?
Jay: Apparently, I was too rich for them. Imagine the irony. The dean said I’m better off getting my degree from other private universities, since it looks as though I can afford it anyway. Bollocks. If I can afford it, I wouldn’t have gone to their school in the first place.

I lit myself another cigarette.

Grey: What do you need that stupid degree for, anyway? You already have one, and you have a job. You’re more than capable to acquire studies on your own, and given enough time, you can be competitive enough to move on and get a better job.
Jay: It seemed like a great idea at the time.
Grey: Better to save yourself the trouble now than waste years of precious time over some overrated title and a piece of fancy paper. You’ve always been the non-conformist; I’ve never thought you’d be the one who would bawl over rejection from social conventionalization. The so-called experts said you’re way out of your league- big deal. Pick up your shit and move on. Besides, I doubt you would last a month back in school.

The fucker actually had truth in his words, I thought as I took a sip of my beer.

Jay: Pretty big words for someone named after a fucking color.
Grey: That coming from someone named after a dude from the BIIII-BBBLLLEEE?
Jay: Psssh. Touché (another sip). Hell, why do I even bother listening. What do you know about me? I’ve only met you hours ago. I bet you don’t even have a degree yourself.
Grey: I’m psychic, remember? And I don’t need your earthly primitive notion of deg-rees to sustain our needs of survival and amusement. My people have twice the size of your puny little earth-brains and optimize 100 percent of its capability. Half the sweat, twice the profit.
Jay: Seriously…what the fuck are you talking about?
Grey: I’m talking about my people, back in my home-world, how we are all naturally geniuses.
Jay: What home-world? You are made in china. The tag said so.
Grey: Exactly.

The git had a point. Miles away from relevance, but a point nonetheless. Maybe it is all a little superficial.

Grey: What exactly gets you down? Surely it’s not just the gratification and pride of having accomplished something that you’re digging for…
Jay: I thought you were a psychic…

Silence.

Grey: What’s the big fucking deal about having gray hairs?
Jay: You read my mind?! I felt desecrated, bastard.
Grey: Gray hairs are sexy. Look at Richard Gere.
Jay: Okay, so now you’re a faggot?
Grey: I told you, we’re asexual.
Jay: So if I told you to go fuck yourself, you can actually go and do it?
Grey: Not in the same context, but pretty much, yeah.
Jay: Freak.

For the first time since the sad tiding was broken, I felt a smile crawl up to my lips. Maybe everything really is going to be alright.

Grey: So, I ask you again, what’s next for you?
Jay: Same as it has always been (sip). Tomorrow.

I took a last puff at stubbed out my cigarette, lit another one, poured a mug-full of beer, and raised my glass to a toast.

Jay: To the great bloody potentials.
Grey: Cheers.

I took out the book I bought from Powerbooks on the way to the bar and started flipping through the pages, and by the time I finished reading a couple of pages, the blues has started to wash away. Grey was right. Gray hairs doesn’t mean shit.

And he was right about another thing- it wasn’t the end of the line for me. It’s not like it’s a great loss for my career. I just have to propel my helm to a different direction. Not necessarily inferior ones, just different. I went home that night with a good buzz and a light heart. Once again, Grey, with the perpetual dumb look on his face, sat silently beside me, keeping his hush until the time I required his company again.

Yeah, I guess he’s cool-

     For a 45-peso [ukay ukay] beanie baby, with a head filled with cotton and guts filled with beads, he was one heck of a good conversationalist.

Hangover from Friday the effing 13th

• Cash withdrawn from payout two hours before – P3500
• Replacement for Chinabank Tellercard – P100
• Guess leather wallet – P1000
• Renewal of driver’s license – P750
• Affidavit of Loss and Notary Public Services – P200
• The look on my face when I found my bag opened and my wallet stolen  – Priceless

First Contact

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. I was having a smoke in our backyard when I noticed our septuagenarian neighbor hacking and hammering about the dead mango tree trunk (uprooted by milenyo some six months ago), for some fire woods, I guessed as much. He looked up a few minutes after he became aware of my presence, made some remark about the handsaw he was using, and promptly went back to his labor. I thought to myself, what the hell, went back into our garage, took out one of my dad’s saw (the one used for cutting metals) got back to the old man and let him use it instead, and for the first time in eleven years we’ve been living in this small village, I am actually having an actual conversation with a stranger.

He didn’t look senile at all (he was wearing a gold necklace with a pendant as big as my thumb – which probably cost as much as my two months’ salary), and I was actually impressed with the almost professional handling of his tools – a skill that can only be attributed to years of experience, remarking to myself that he must be someone who closely worked with his hands. He tried the saw that I handed him for a few minutes, smiled and politely gave it back, telling me he’ll just stick with his (a small one that looked like a child’s toy, one that comes with a plastic hammers and pliers). I sat beside him and listened for half an hour as he tells his (relatively trivial) life while watching in semi-amazement the dexterity and precision (though missing the chisel stump with his hammer a couple of times, he had clean chops most of the time) he displays with his tools despite being sixteen years senior of my own father.

So I sat and smoked and listened while he tells about his thirty-three years in investigation service in the now defunct (I only assumed) Metrocom; about his adventures with some Gen. Montoya and his wife; about his chisel and his old handsaw (which some airhead borrowed and used to saw through iron nails – he found out from the iron filing left in the blade…investigation officer indeed), and a good place to have them re-sharpened; about things that I would have forgotten about the next day. I listened, and found myself developing a bit of respect, and in a way, love, for the old man.

Three Marlboros and a bag full of wood later, we bid our farewells. I went back to our house, put my dad’s saw back in his box, had three slices of pizza, rode my bike out and watched the sunset, and wrote.

I never got to ask the old man’s name (though he’s been living in the house across the street for some time now), but there’s still a good ten feet of log left off the mango tree, though. I doubt that will be the last of our little tête-à-tête, and maybe next time, I would try to actually sit down and get my hands dirty on that old mango tree, get to know more about General-frigging-Montoya, and find out what the hell makes his old tiny handsaw better than ours.