Off to Apple's pad again yesterday afternoon, as a result of Fridaymorning's settlement. It seemed like we always have a sort of castparty whenever we're there. We were never without food, thanks toApple, Pres and Chieboy's hospitality. Neil also brought pizza and icecream yesterday, as an excuse not to question him about hisnewly-shaved head, ahehehe.

Updates and release of fees occurred, and as usual, none of us can'tstay away because of the company. I've grown to love this group ofcrazy people ever since I first started rehearsing with them. Myfavorite part during that afternoon was (aside from the food) afterChie had slipped on this wig that he had borrowed from Jerome, when healong with Pres and Geli improvised some crazy "radio show" thatevolved into two more radio shows. Hahahaha! I was supposed to leaveearly that time, but I couldn't help staying a bit more until a littleafter the 3rd "show" started.

Even though there are still pending stuff, I hope things won't endhere. I did overhear some talk about doing a new show. Can't wait forthat.

Back to the south to meet with Rosa. Aris had arrived last week anddidn't get to celebrate his birthday, so this weekend was the perfecttime to do so. Good excuse for another get-together, yay. So anyway,Rosa and I promptly arrived at 7pm, because Aris had said 7pm. But ofcourse, "barkada time" is always at least 2 hours after the said time,so we were super early, and ended up spending half an hour at the mostwatching TV in Aris' room before we started getting hungry.

Ramon arrived soon after, then the rest followed. There was Raffy, PJand fiancee Joy, Carlo (spur of the moment invite that Rosa almostforgot, hahaha!), Seph and Josh. Hehe, to satiate the almost weeklysushi craving, we mostly pigged out on tuna and salmon sashimi if wetook a break from the usual two variants of pasta and barbecue.

It was so hilarious how we remembered to invite Carlo. We were justtalking about this old photo of our entire clique (the most completeone that we posted in the yearbook) and about how to edit it (don'tbother asking why, hehe). By the way, I had just remembered that nightthat Carlo used to be part of Sisig, the Dawn's alternate band in TP'sproduction of EJ. Too bad hehad quit before the band got hired to do the show. Hehehe, we also gotJoy to tell us the story about how PJ had proposed to her.

"Sabihin mo kay Carlo na ngumiti siya pag dumating na siya."
"He wanted to go to People's Palace..." (Uhm... PJ, wala sa Tagaytay ang People's Palace. Palace in the Sky, maybe?)
"Toast... to PJ and Josh...AY SHET! JOY pala!"
"So nag-bowling din kayo? What is it with Tagaytay?"

Aside from all the quips and jokes, we managed to look back at the goodol' (and innocent? Haha) days, we even got out the yearbook from whenwe were seniors in high school. Wahaha, I was ready to laugh at each ofthe clique's "Most Likely To" and "20 Years From Now." Crazy. But ofcourse, I love these people. Same day next week, you guys.

Last night, Maika sent me this text message:

FLASHBACK!

Text me one memory we had together. The 1st one that pops in your head. Keep this going and see what the remember about you.

I immediately replied with a memory of the two of us hanging outtogether in her dorm, McDo Taft, and the now defunct AKU. My goodness,the memories came rushing back. As we were texting each other, we bothcouldn't believe that over 5 years had already passed since then.

I turned it into sort of exercise, reminiscing what I could, both goodand the bad. Yep, even the bad. I smiled at the memory of it, anddidn't have any regrets of anything that had happened. Remembering thebad stuff meant that I managed to go through it and survive.

So I, in turn, also sent the same message to my friends. Every replytriggered a memory, usually something funny. From the replies I got,here are some of my favorites.

Betty: Nung nag mother and daughter day. (Mamma Mia pa ang pinanood namin na movie, hahaha. By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!)
Cindy: Sandal mo sana ang ulo mo sa ulap... (Uhm, Cindy, hindi ba unan yun instead of ulap? Hahaha, Blue Jeans days will never fade.)
Dingdong: You wearing the pink hairband with the antennae. (Randomnessduring Tartuffe rehearsals. I just found this fuzzy hairband in one ofthe seats. In retaliation, I told him that my memory of him was hisCogsworth-looking wig in the play.)
Dyown: ZsaZsa Zaturnnah days. (Syempre, dito nabuo ang BFFs, hahaha!)
Trency: Early birds behind CCP. (Duringthe summer, Trency and I always found each other hanging out at theSouth Entrance before class. At first we used to just study andrehearse scene, but then it evolved into small talk.)
Geli: Nung first time tayo nagkita sa rehearsals sa San Isidro na super "po" ako sa inyo nina Jojo. Hahaha! (Tamabang patandain pa ako lalo? Ahehehe. I was actually surprised to findout that they still sort of knew me from before my thesis was supposedto collaborate with their college org.)
Mia: Doubt! Hehe! (Ican never forget the "chatroom" established over the headset, and howBea had caught me lying on the prop bench--ready to sleep, I mightadd--from the other side of the stage. And of course, those quotablequotes.)
Lara: My top of my head memory. Corsets! When we helped each other. Classic! (This was how we became "breast friends." Hahaha.)
Lav: At Nemesis with you adlibbing because your co-actor flubbed a line. (Mygoodness, I was always in check while acting with Alvin in Nemesisbecause he always automatically corrected himself whenever he made amistake. Thank goodness we managed to make things a little funny when Isort of improvised. And I was super duper glad to see Lav and Arni inthe audience after not seeing them in 2 years.)

I was supposed to write a "back on this day" blog entry. But this ismuch better. What about you? What's the 1st memory you can think of ofus together? Or you can share a memory of your own from any year atthis exact time.

By the way, I heard that Marj just gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Congrats, Marj!

The title just sort of describes my state of mind right now. Not reallyrelated to the rest of this blog entry, hahaha. Anyway. Waiting.Waiting for things to be resolved. Waiting for at least a couple ofthings to happen. I've been jumping at things for some time now thatI've been told that I need to stop doing so. So now I'm slowing thingsdown. Lie low and wait.

I was chatting with Lara a few days ago about that "ilang factor" Bettyand I had talked about at least once or twice a couple of years ago. Ihave to admit, I do recall a lot of "ilang factors" right on up untilthe day of the show at St. Scho. Then came the late night chats,get-togethers at Apple's house (I only got to go twice), and lost someof it. I guess. So maybe I'm not really that tight with certain people,if not most. But even in that short duration of time that I spent withthese crazy people, I'd always stick up for them.

I'm not making sense, hahaha.

I logged in to my PinoyExchange account this morning and opened myinbox of private messages. There were some messages in there that camefrom a couple of YFC brothers I was pretty close to. And it was datedway back in 2001. They were both commenting on my rant that I hadposted in my blog. I had ranted about their juvenile behavior, at howthey acted pretty pious whenever they're obligated to do so, and actotherwise outside or even within the perimeter of our org's cubicle. Ihad never showed to them that I was pissed off or even annoyed at them,as I have been one of the org's prominent members in the beginning. Ialways went out of my way to take care of these people, and they treateveryone else like doormats or someone below their status.

An excerpt from Raphy's message:

You can't really say that you are too weird or too different for themto handle. We are all weird in our own ways. If they can't handleyours, then it's their loss. Maybe because their culture settings andupbringings are different from yours, but that's just that. But Ibelieve that they really treasure your uniqueness from them. It's veryhard to be associated in a group and to be recognized in a group. Butit's way harder to be recognized as an individual. The only consolationis knowing that you will have personal fulfillment knowing that peopleknow and respect you for who you are.

...I also told her that aside fromher and you-know-who, there are twoother sisters that I'm glad to be starting to relate to: one of them is***** and the other is you. I think it was *** or *** who dubbed me asthe "male version of Hogi". I found that comical, but I was flatteredknowing that I have a sister in the community that I could relate tobased on personality alone. And that was reason enough for me to saythat I you are the type of "down-to-earth" people that I'm proud to befriends with. You don't really need to have a common bond with theothers to be able to relate to them at first. It takes an extra effortto go up to the person and start a conversation with them.

It's a really crappy situation that we are all in, but it's what wehave and it's up to us to make good on it. If they still don't like youby then, it's their loss becuase they don't appreciate your importanceand the good things in you not only in the community, but as a person.When you do decide to stop keeping yourself scarce, I, as a brother inthe community and as a friend, will support you.

God Bless.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe I've already been addicted to blogging backthen (2001). I've been blogging for over nine years. Interesting.

Hahaha, I guess I'm just trying to make myself feel better during this gloomy and rainy day.

So on to some good news. I received a text from PJ early yesterdaymorning. He's getting married in January! Yahoo! Congrats, Peej!

Another bit of good news. A little project at the end of this month, yay. Thanks, Mandy!

Got to catch the last show of TP Actors Company's recital yesterday.It's been a while since they last had a recital. The last time Iactually saw one was a couple of years ago. The last recital (forVoice) they had last season didn't count, as my back was turned to thembecause I was tasked to be Paolo's page-turner, hahaha.

Arrived at CCP at the same time as Tad did (which was at least a coupleof hours before the show began), as we rode the same shuttle, so we hadlunch together first. OK, cheesy comment. I actually missed qualitytime with Tad that I was pretty giddy at the simple action of puttingmy hand in his, heeheehee. Anyway, after lunch, we bummed around in theLT lobby for a while with Riki and Chrome, taking advantage of the wifiinternet.

When I left Tad in the LT dressing room with the rest of the AC to prepup (well, Anna was taking a nap and Russ was clowning around), I wentwith Shing to the Conference Room so we can find the best place to sit.Eventually we just hung around, goofing around with Max, then Betty.

Showtime. Tad and Kat's piece, Tragedy for Two, was up first. It was quite an interesting adaptation from Antigone,which I read only once for world drama class. OK, so I may be biased,but Tad's performance was pretty impressive, even though he said thateveryone's energy was lower that day compared to the night before. Ialways knew that Kat is also a brilliant actress, thanks to hertraining, but I guess Tad overshadowed her a bit sometimes. Yet heractions were pretty clear.

After the first intermission, Bong and Wenah were next in The Lover. I remember Tad recommending this piece this summer when Mimay was hunting for a play we could do (just in case Nemesis didn't push through). I've always admired Wenah and Bong as actors, sotheir recital piece didn't disappoint me at all. I first thought thatthey were doing the original English piece, but I loved that theyshifted to and from Filipino and one other native dialect (Bisaya?).Haha, I still can't get over Bong's Freudian slip, which also providedforeshadowing to his chorus role in the next play, HAHAHA.

Baby B was the third play after the second intermission. I've seen the staged reading of this play during last year's Virgin Labfest,with Anna as the title role. Tara took on the role of Baby B this time,Anna as Amy, and Riki reprised his role as Buddy. Russ played severaltypes of customers, and Chrome was the Dupang guy. Tad, Kat, Bong andWenah completed the ensemble, resembling phantoms from The Rocky Horror Show. Hmmm... maybe I just got used to the staged reading so I saw a pretty different Baby B that Tara had interpreted.

All in all, it was a pretty good show. I have to agree with Sir JoeyTing that TP needs to do shows like these to showcase what the ActorsCompany can do for Tanghalang Pilipino productions.

Congratulations to the TP Actors Company!

Just a thought. I feel as if I'm riding a bicycle down a hill, and mybrakes are out. Even though it's pretty exhilarating to be riding attop speed and feeling the wind in my face, it's pretty scary as well asthe ride gets out of control.

I was supposed to spend this entire Saturday just bumming around in myroom, channel-surfing, online surfing, or just sleeping, hahaha.

Then early this afternoon, I got a call from Rosa, who happened to be acouple of blocks away from my house at Mocha Blends. As it turned out,Aris had dropped her off there while he goes off to Perpetual Helphospital for a general checkup. Even while she's armed with her Germanlanguage homework, I knew it could get pretty boring hanging out for atleast a couple of hours alone, so I walked over to join her for somegirl talk over coffee and carrot cake.

Hahaha, good thing I did get off my bum and go to Mocha Blends.Otherwise, Rosa would have gone crazy over there. Aris arrived a littleover a couple of hours later, starving, so the three of us headed toATC. Hehe, Aris had his fill as he hadn't had any lunch yet, and Rosacurbed a craving that she couldn't exactly describe. I, on the otherhand, finished 3 pieces of samosa that Rosa had bought earlier thatday. Yummm. Then after we had our fill, of course I couldn't resist thecall of Timezone, so I introduced Rosa to the game Drei and I gotaddicted to, hahaha.

Killed a little more time around the mall before we finally headedhome. Thanks for the afternoon, Rosa. Can't wait for next week.Belated happy birthday, Aris!

La Boheme is the greatest love story ever sung. So I was told.

Got to watch Philippine Opera Company's rehearsal of La Boheme yesterday evening, courtesy of Lorna Lopez. She and Karla Gutierrezinvited bloggers to watch yesterday's rehearsal and in return, we getto post our reviews and reactions. Sounds like a pretty good publicitydeal, haha.

We were told that the run would begin at 8pm, but I arrived prettyearly to hang out in the lobby. Good thing for that, because I foundSundee and Santi, and they told me that the run would begin at 6pm.Immediately joined them in the house a few moments before the curtainrose to begin the first act.

Of course, it didn't really help that Sundee was sitting next to me and kept commenting and comparing each scene to a scene in Rent,harharhar. Santi was pretty much quiet, simply saying at the beginningof the show that he doesn't understand the entire Italian libretto andadmitted that he hasn't seen Rent.

Anyway, with the direction of Floy Quintos and music by the PhilippinePhilharmonic Orchestra under the baton of international conductor HelenQuach, this version takes us to modern-day Manila, instead of the usual19th-century Paris. The first act takes place in a penthouse owned by 4friends--Marcello, Rodolfo, Colline and Schaunard. Of course, if youknew the entire story of Rent,you'd know that these 4 people could also be Mark, Roger, Collins, andAngel, respectively. Anyway, I actually loved how the set was designed.It really showed the condition of the penthouse, right on up to theroof. A projector from behind the scrim projected an image of a Manilaskyline, complete with the moon and clouds moving from time to time.When another character, Benoit, comes in, Rentheads would automaticallyassume that it's Benny, and yes, he's there to collect the rent. Tocompare this to the musical, I actually liked how the four friendsfirst welcomed Benoit, letting him drink beer/wine (that Schaunard hadbrought in earlier in the act) before throwing him out without payingthe rent.

Of course, when Marcello, Colline and Schaunard go out and leaveRodolfo in the apartment, sure enough, Mimi enters the scene with acandle. Sir Floy had mentioned that this situation is very familiar toPinoys, considering we still have blackouts and he even joked thatwe're most likely the only country that still uses candles, hahaha!

On to Act 2, which seems to take place in some public marketplace. Iassumed that it was a nightspot somewhere in Malate. Harold, who was inthat scene along with the huge chorus, had said later that the scenewas along Manila Bay. Close enough, hehe. One thing that upset me inthis act is that there were too many people. The place was too crowdedand it felt like the crowd was pouring out of the stage. Given that, wecould hardly find the lead characters in the scene because there wastoo much going on. Well, what did help a little was that the entirechorus was in black in white, leaving the lead cast decked in theircolorful costumes and highlighted by follow-spots. Yet, the crowd wasreally too distracting. Maybe if they moved a little slower, it couldhelp highlight the actors.

The third act was Sir Floy's favorite act, according to him. I did,too, haha. Taking place in an abandoned carnival where prostitutes and tambays hang out, the scene/act was about love that you can't live with andcan't live without. I love the quartet of Mimi, Rodolfo, Musetta (yep,you got it--Maureen) and Marcello. One couple reconciles, while theother quarrels. As the scene progressed, I remember Bobby oncementioning that in musical theater, time is warped. Even though this isan opera, I do believe this is a pretty good example, because Rodolfoand Mimi bid each other farewell for the entire second half of the act.

We return to the penthouse for the 4th act. Again, Sundee inputs thatthis is the part where Collins manages to break into an ATM withAngel's help near the end of Rent,because Colline and Schaunard enter once again with food. Of course,that was before Rodolfo and Marcello lament over their lost loves. Asthe four friends goof around, there we go, Musetta enters with an illMimi.

This is where Sundee keeps complaining as to why Rodolfo and Mimi aresmiling, when everyone knows that the latter is dying. Harold sort-ofpaitently explains that maybe they were remembering something goodbetween them in the past, which is exactly what I was also thinking.Goes to show that you should do more research, Sundee, haha. You saidthat you've been listening to this opera since you were still in theNavy.

Anyway, this doesn't have an ideal ending as opposed to Rent,because Mimi actually dies. I do believe that the last words in thisopera was Mimi's name, cried out by Rodolfo. And after she dies, ourattention is suddenly turned to the backdrop, as all of the billboardsin the skyline had changed to photos of the actress/singer playing Mimi.

One thing I have to say, I love how opera singers can project theirvoice. All throughout the run, I overheard Santi and Lorna, on separateoccasions, say that since what we had seen was just a run, they stilldon't have their lapel microphones on. But upon hearing those voices,who needs them? I already knew that they won't be using any mics, andthey're performing in the CCP Main Theater. Huwaw. May this be a goodexample to actors who get too dependent on their microphones, hahaha. Iremember Miss Tess endlessly getting us to project inside the LittleTheater during our acting workshop.

Considering that this is only a run-through, the orchestra was stoppedseveral times by Helen Quach. Haha, so it's not perfect yet, but I haveto applaud everyone who was involved in this production, especially SirFloy. Thanks to you, Sir, for taking the time to talk to us right afterthe run.