Yeah baby, the earth’s movin’, under our feet, and we better be ready for it…
I feel the earth move!
November 10, 2010 at 3:46 pm (2000s Philippines, Angst, Current Events, Manila Houses, Personal, Random memories, The Batanguenos, The Bicolanos, The Bulaquenos, The Cagayanons, The Cavitenos, The Cebuanos, The Davaoenos, The Global Crowd, The Ilocanos, The Ilonggos, The Laguna Tagalogs, The Leytenos, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Novo Ecijanos, The Pampanguenos, The Pangasinenses, The Samarenos, The Tarlaquenos, The Tayabenses / Quezonians, Tristesse)
Comedy relief: “Dive” bars
November 10, 2010 at 2:38 pm (2000s Philippines, Comedy Relief, Family Traditions, Humor, Personal, Quiason de San Fernando, Random memories, Reyes de Arayat, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, Valdes de Pampanga)
Once in a while, funny memories inexplicably return with a full whammy, leaving me laughing heartily to the wonder of other people around who think that I’ve gone bonkers [ well, they’re probably right 😛 ].
I remember my Daddy, my Mommy, and her good friend Tita Nena D. gathered around the dining table for “merienda” one afternoon decades ago [ in the 1970s ] and laughing endlessly about something they called “dive!”
“Dive”???!!! It was only years later that I understood what “dive” was… it was a quaint euphemism for sex. 😛
Daddy, Mommy, and Tita Nena D. were terribly amused, with their sides splitting, because an apparently still randy, short, late seventysomething uncle of Mommy had tried to have a final act of passion, a “final round” of sex with his petite late seventysomething wife, in the process splitting his urethra permanently, causing hospitalization and a permanent relationship with his catheter. The unimaginable thought of the two shriveled seventysomethings getting it on drove the younger fiftysomethings to endless bouts of laughter. “Nag-‘dive’ pa kasi!!!” the three guffawed.
Two decades later in the early 2000s, we were again treated to a “dive” comedy within the family by Mommy’s randy, divorced seventysomething Reyes cousin. One literally hot April night, he brought two sexxxy streetwalkers from Quezon avenue back to his “bachelor pad” for some “double happiness”… And indeed, “double happiness” it turned out to be!!! During the course of the too-hot-to-handle debauched and bawdy sex, he had a stroke from his unmanaged hypertension!!! The two female hotties apparently left in a huff out of fright, thinking they had killed him [ which they actually did, in the most sensual sense! ], leaving him paralyzed and helpless. At around 5:00 a.m., he finally succeeded in calling my Mommy, only managing a faint groan. Frantic Mommy and his gay go-for rushed to his “bachelor pad,” which they found locked securely. After many tries with a nearby locksmith, they finally succeeded in entering his rooms where they found him in all his naked glory, motionless, in the comically compromising position where the stroke and the two hotties had left him, surrounded by vintage American porn and all manner of antediluvian sex toys. Frantic Mommy rushed him to the nearby Episcopal hospital, where he was admitted to the ICU. My conservative and proper Mommy’s “press release” to the family [ even to her “kids,” would you believe??? ] and the relatives was that “he had suffered greatly from the heat during a recent trip to the northern highlands and that had precipitated the stroke.” “Felt the heat,” you betcha!!! He actually survived and even partially recovered. Since his stroke he has been trying to get some long-delayed, badly-needed sex — even just a “hand job,” please! — from his female caregivers these recent years, but to no avail. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!!!” Harharhar!!! 😛
“Nag-‘dive’ pa kasi!!!” we twentysomethings guffawed.
Yes, we should all be careful before we “dive”… specially since we are not getting any younger!!! ;P ;P ;P
Dinosaurs and extinction
November 3, 2010 at 10:02 pm (19th century Filipino Art, Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos)
[ Dear Readers: This is a post about our deceased family members which I have to write. It will most probably not interest you. You may spare yourselves the trouble. 😛 ]
08 October 2010, Friday, 2200 hours. Yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’ve been influenced by “contemporary thinking”: I’ve junked the whole “All Souls’ Day” tradition of the family. Call me the “weak link” or whatever, but I don’t see why I have to be the “Old Faithful” geyser of the family, a quaint relic of the past, when my siblings and my nephews and nieces are out in Phuket, Bangkok, Bali, Singapore, Shanghai, Boracay, Baguio whooping it up and not being where they should be in the first place. You see, I didn’t believe in a family autocracy [ operative word: “didn’t”; now I believe in an oppressive dictatorship! ], but I do believe that as a responsible, duty-bound adult member of a tradition-bound family, you know where you should be at certain occasions throughout the year. No questions. After all, you’re not a 6 year old child and neither are you the golden retriever nor the Jack Russell that has to be told what to do. Or are you???
Death has become trivialized in these contemporary, “e” – everything times. We have negated it to the point that it comes as a total shock when it comes, although it barely stops us for a minute these days. Our usual reaction is a shrug of resignation. It wasn’t the case for those who came long before us. For them, death was a central point of life as well as its ultimate destination, and it was celebrated with Hispanic pomp and circumstance during “Todos los Santos” and “Semana Santa”…
I grew up at a time when 02 November of every year meant all of us getting up very early [ 4:30 – 5:30 a.m. ] in order to leave the city at 6:30 a.m., to arrive in time for the 7:30 a.m. All Souls’ Day holy mass at the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Apalit Catholic cemetery. The big come-on was the big Capampangan breakfast which followed at the old house in barrio Capalangan.
It was a time when we observed quarterly or more visits to the family burial ground to remember, pray for, and weep for Lola Charing who had passed away on 18 May 1977. Those were the last days of death as a gothic and Victorian experience, when black dresses, sheer black veils, formal ecru barong tagalog with black armbands, pants, and shoes, long rows of funeral sprays [ the more “important” the sender, the more costly the flowers and the florists, the better ], and endless eulogies were de rigueur for the funeral rites of traditional families. It has unraveled and modernized since, with the “cuerpo presente” reduced to a brief “ashfall,” white as the new color of mourning, chic buffets by chichi caterers, and even “house music” thrown in for “atmo”…
In those days, we brought beautiful flowers, lit tall candles, and said heartfelt prayers for our deceased family members. We remembered them with fondness even with all their shortcomings, idiosyncrasies, and eccentricities. We honored and loved them, even if we had never even met them.
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The dinosaurs and the dates of their extinction:
Florencia Sioco viuda de Gonzalez, “Eciang,” 1860 – 1925. My paternal grandfather’s mother.
Ysidora Espiritu viuda de Gonzalez, “Orang,” + 1975. Lola Charing’s maternal aunt. Delightfully eccentric character.
Augusto Gonzalez y Sioco, “Bosto” / “Titong,” 1887 – 1939. The fortune he accumulated allowed three generations, now going on the fourth, to live well.
Rosario Arnedo viuda de Gonzalez, “Charing,” 1903 – 1977. Dearest Lola Charing.
Marina Gonzalez y Arnedo, “Mina,” + 1974. Tita Mina was Daddy’s eldest sister and she was deformed.
Augusto Beda Gonzalez y Arnedo, “Beda,” 1932 – 1990. Daddy.
Ermelo Gonzalez y Arnedo, “Melo,” 1933 – 2001.
Hector Gonzalez y Arnedo, “Hector,” 1937 – 1988.
Macario Domingo Gonzalez y Arnedo, 1938.
Macario Diosdado Gonzalez y Arnedo, “Macarito” / Brother Andrew Benjamin Gonzalez, F.S.C., “Brother Andrew,” 1940 – 2006.
Pilar Reyes y Quiason, “Pilar” / “Pil,” 1933 – 2002. Mommy.
Monina Gonzalez y Gala, “Minnie,” 1964 – 1991. As Brother Andrew said: “Too bad, Minnie would have been very rich!”
Household staff:
During Tito Melo’s funeral in June 2001, his niece Ave Gala-Blanco asked me who were the “strange names” in some of the gravestones. I quipped a line still memorable to Ave and the Gala cousins: “We’re like the Egyptians, we’re buried with the slaves!” 😛
Alejandra Ochengco y Padilla, “Andang,” +1969. “Imang Andang” had been working in the Gonzalez-Sioco household since the early 1920s.
Natalia Padilla, “Talia,” + 1976. Ate Talia, the “mayordoma.”
Leodegaria Nuqui, “Garing,” + 198_. Dearest Ate Garing, the cook.
Benito Nuqui, “Bito” / “Bits,” + 1999. Dearest Pare Bits. He started out as the personal “barquillos” maker of Lola Mary Arnedo [ Lola Charing’s sister ] in the Arnedo-Sioco household in the late 1930s.
Aurea Rodriguez, “Baluga,” + 195_. She was an Aeta from Zambales who liked to sleep in the kitchen near a stove with live coals.
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Just wait until I junk Christmas and Easter altogether. And while I’m at it, my Christianity and Roman Catholicism as well. Throw in my crappy family for good measure. That will be the day. 😐 😐 😐
*unfinished*
Beyond repair, beyond regret
November 2, 2010 at 10:02 pm (1800s Filipinas, 1900s Philippines, Angst, Arnedo de Sulipan, Brother Andrew F.S.C. of De La Salle, Comedy Relief, Domestic Travels, Family Traditions, Gonzalez de Sulipan, Humor, Pampanga Cuisine, Pampanga Traditions, Personal, Random memories, Religious Traditions, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos, The Pampanguenos, The Past, Tristesse)
Probably because of all the shit that had happened since, I no longer remember why we were there at the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Apalit Catholic cemetery, just the two of us, my uncle Brother Andrew and I, one sunny, breezy afternoon sometime in the early 2000s… [ The venerable Brother Andrew Benjamin Gonzalez, F.S.C., 1940 – 2006, of the De La Salle / Brothers of the Christian Schools, longtime president of the DLSU De La Salle University in Manila ]
“You can just put my ashes [ half ] anywhere here… when the time comes.” Brother Andrew declared, a detectable gulp in his voice, as he surveyed the extension to the right of the old mausoleum, where the younger members of the family, his generation, were buried. “The other half will have to be with the Brothers in Lipa.”
“Well, why not just be interred wholly in Lipa? Why be ‘chop-chop’ like a pig?” I asked.
“Because none of you will visit me there, damn it!” he scoffed.
I laughed. “Of course we won’t, it’s too far! Besides, how would you know, you’d be dead, six feet under the ground, or six feet over, whichever…”
“I know!” he snapped with finality.
“Well, which half goes here and which half goes to the Brothers? From your head to your tummy here, and from your ass to your feet to the Brothers? Or the other way around?” I asked jokingly.
“It doesn’t matter. Some here, some there… Just do it, please!” he requested, his eyes wide with sarcasm and scorn for his wisecracking nephew.
“OK! Whatever turns you on, Brother.” I shrugged.
“OK. Where do we go to eat now? I had a lousy lunch! I’m hungry!” and off he stomped back to the car.
And with that query, we left the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Apalit Catholic cemetery.
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Some five years later in January 2006, Brother Andrew passed away of severe diabetic complications. That afternoon, my lawyer brother, his Korean wife, and I were enjoying the delights of the 168 mall in Divisoria for the first time. All those cheap and cheerful goods!!! At 4:30 p.m., my brother received a text message that Brother Andrew was finally dying at the De La Salle University hospital in Cavite. We immediately decided to return home to get organized. As we were driving along Quezon avenue in front of the Santo Domingo church at around 5:30 p.m., we received another text message that he had already passed away. I sighed, then continued looking at all the nice fake watches I had bought which I forthwith decided I simply couldn’t wear and would have to give away to our male employees… The guy’s dead anyway, what could we do about it?!
By that time, he had messed up family matters so badly — with not a little help from youknowwho, youknowwhotoo, and youknowwhoelse — that some of us, including yours truly, had simply eradicated him from our lives. Probably because of divine intervention, I managed to visit the dying man a few times in the hospital and actually be cordial, as if nothing bad had happened at all, which the poor man happily interpreted as “reconciliation” [ which it really wasn’t, it would take a longer time, but what do you do with a dying man? ]. We were still able to talk about some important things, but not all, before he finally “kicked the bucket.”
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It’s 2010 and I’m a very different person, sometimes unrecognizable even to myself. Gone are the kindness, innocence, generosity of soul that everyone who had known me in childhood could attest. Essentially. Then I finally realized, contrary to what I had been taught and had believed in all my life, that goodness has no place in this world where one must kill, in all ways, to survive. The danger is that the difference lies deep inside: the cynicism, sarcasm, vengefulness, darkness of the soul… although visible are the tired eyes, the sagging cheeks, the droopy smile, the weatherbeaten look of it all. I think evil of everyone, bolstered by the fact that I’m usually proven right as time passes. I prefer the Stepmother to Cinderella, Maleficent to the Three Good Fairies, Odile to Odette, Tosca to Violetta. They’re more fun!!!
What’s the point of visiting the dead family members during All Souls’ Day anyway??? Why all the pretenses??? Why visit the dead when the living detest and even loathe each other? What family? Are you to be considered family when you’re only all too willing to destroy the entire superstructure just to feed your sense of self-entitlement, simply because you feel outdone and disenfranchised by so-and-so, because you’re named so-and-so, the supposed favorite of so-and-so? What legacies? Are misunderstandings, arguments, quarrels, and protracted wars among family members considered legacies??? We might as well be all dead if that’s the case!!!
Last week, my sister made arrangements for the Apalit parish priest to say an anticipated All Souls’ Day mass at the Gonzalez mausoleum at the Catholic cemetery; she was the only one who attended. A few days later, my eldest brother, still hip and groovy from the non-trad 1970s, called my younger brother so that they and their families could make the trip to the mausoleum at the cemetery. What for??? Did they ever care for those traditions when they were still there? Why make a show of it now, now that it’s gone, for good??? What for??? As for me, I told them pointedly that since we could no longer have the traditional Capampangan breakfast at the old house in Sulipan / Capalangan, the least they could do would be to cart me off to the Pen, the Shang, or the Sofitel Plaza for breakfast, brunch, or lunch. “Antonio’s” Tagaytay would be nice. Other than that, please do not bother me with your inanities, I told them.
SHIT. Sartre would agree.
remembrance of things awry 