remembrance of things awry

In terms of sheer fun, no parties in the city can compare to the fabulous birthday bashes of Don Conrado “Ado” Escudero at their splendid family seat — the Villa Escudero — just outside San Pablo City in Laguna.  Yes, there are hosts in the city with formal receptions, distinguished guests,  sumptuous gourmet food and grand cru wines, full orchestra music, fantastic decor, and other unspeakable extravagances but no one can top the dizzyingly cosmopolitan and thoroughly intoxicating mix of very interesting worldly guests which results in social electricity of such memorable megawattage as Don Conrado “Ado” Escudero, “El Anfitrion” [ The Amphitryons, hosts to the gods ].

Among so many memories, I remember the unforgettable ladies who “shook, rattled, and rolled” on the dance floor during those heady evenings…

A great presence during those parties was Manila’s most famous sex therapist.  Every movement exuded her energetic sexuality.  When we complimented her for her incredibly energetic dancing, She advised:  “Toto, think of something BIG!!!”  *lolsz!*

Very memorable was a prominent Manila lady, famous [ or notorious ] for her weekly show in the 1970s where she sang traditional Filipino music, who danced the most beautiful, the most elegant, and the most expressive tango that any of us had ever seen.  *applauds*  With her prominent lawyer husband in the background, she glided to the dance floor with a tall and handsome partner and began a tango of romance, passion, and betrayal which could have put even Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner to shame.  She danced with the fullest of emotions — with every nod, look, turn, twirl, and dip.  There were twirls in which she seemed to be gracefully falling to the floor, only to be swept up with bravado by her partner.  She was exquisite, exquisite, exquisite!!!  It was the most memorable tango series we had ever seen…

I remember a Belgian lady diplomat whom we enjoyed observing.  We were introduced during cocktails and we thought that she must have been of aristocratic or at least interesting descent because her surname was  prefixed by a “van der”…  She was dressed in silver lame with a turban ala Greta Garbo in the 1930s but she was overweight and wore thick maquillage.  Obviously a child of the 1960s, She did the “Twist,” the “Shake,” the “Locomotion,” the “Mashed Potato,” and every dance she knew.  We enjoyed watching her because everything was falling apart while she danced:  her turban unfurling, hair untangling,  maquillage dripping, decolletage lowering, [ costume ] jewelry falling, and costume unraveling.  She was a “fag hag” and danced with every gay man present.  The thing was, she “outfagged” the fags!!!

Then there was this very vivacious Ilongga lady [ from Iloilo ] who carried a venerable surname but was actually born on the “wrong side of the tracks.”  She was a much married lady — she preferred European husbands — and the proper Escudero ladies were always told that she was “between marriages”:  She was always “ex-This” but “pre-That” aside from “coming soon.”  She was a sultry and sexy woman, with a shapely derriere that was as wide as the SLEX South Expressway.  Her derriere was the main focus of her dancing:  it swayed with the “rhumba,”  wiggled with the “cha-cha,” bobbed with the “samba,” and careened with the “swing”!!!

Also unforgettable was a young heiress who belonged to one of Laguna’s richest families.  She was not particularly attractive but her thin, wiry figure ala Edie Minturn Sedgwick was truly a sight to behold on the dance floor.  She was a child of the 1970s, and she had this peculiar “drugged out” way of dancing, as if she had just inhaled the popular “substances” of that decade.

It was all summed up by an uberrich but notoriously parsimonious Spanish mestizo friend of high birth who sidled up beside us as we were enjoying the spectacle.  He looked derisively at the heiress who was whooping it up and tearing through the dance floor.  He said, in that trademark Hispano-English accent so peculiar to Manila’s enduringly affluent Spanish mestizos:  “Eeehhh…. the Pangit talaga…  they give it their all!!!”  [ “Yuck… the Ugly really…  they give it their all!!!” ]

We fell out of our chairs laughing!!!