Highlights from last weekend

this post has been saved as a draft for four days. now that we've closed the magazine and have hammered the final nails into the coffin of the notebook PC MIR, i have a bit of leeway to finish this.

Friday

1) hmmm. kinda hard to think of actual "highs" for this as i stayed an office drone till 930pm. oh, ok—emper, rose, darius and i (the last OT stragglers) went down the street to the condo of charlie (charlene manuel, from EC, not to be confused with ex-boss who i hope to never see again in my life) to join the going-away party for melita, also from EC. it was melita’s last day on Friday, and i’ve never even met her. i don’t think we were even introduced at the party. anyway, it was winding down by the time we got there. we just hung out for less than half an hour in charlie’s unit while darius pored over charlie’s old issues of marie claire with the avid interest of a married man (on the cover: "find your hidden hot spots!").

2) no traffic on the way home. 1030 on a Friday night, and while all the other normal souls were streaming into makati, i was making my escape from corporate land. wheeee.

Saturday

1) voice talent audition. it was fun being in the whole amorsolo-mile long building area with its we-do-it-for-love-and-definitely-not-the-money production atmosphere. all the backroom prod work of flashy ayala ave-makati's ad agencies is tucked into little old offices in that area, which is fun to poke around in. i briefly had to put up with uber-irritating american-accented twangy pretentious VO hopefuls in the lobby, and was thus on my best suplada behavior, nose buried in philip pullman's "northern lights". choice gems:

TWANGY GIRL 1: (talking to TWANGY GIRL 2 about VOs, apparently they've done this sooo many times before) i wish it would always go much longer, y'know? cos, like, you can really only start getting into it by, like, the fifth or the sixth take?

TWANGY GIRL 2: i hear you. like, totally.

TG 1: and i hate it that you have to, like, read? it's always so much easier if she [person facilitating the audition] just talks to you. it's like, so hard? 'cause it's like you have to, like, think while you're reading? y'know? like read and think at the same time?

gag me with a spoon. here's another one.

TG 2: do you feel that whole career-versus-money thing just pressing down on you?

TG 1: yeah, like, totally.

TG 2: i was just talking to a friend in dubai and she went off to be an F/A? it's really good money. and then i found out you don't even have to finish college to do that?

TG 1: oh, yeah?

TG 2: i don't know. i don't want to work around people who never finished college. i mean, what did i study for, you know?

i almost flung "northern lights" at this prattling bedroom-voiced prat. infuriating how talking with a contrived american accent all the time can delude you into forgetting that you live in a country where, what is it now, 80 or 90 percent of the citizenry can't afford to go to college.

2) seeing matutina in the lobby. her daughter and grandkids (?) were waiting to audition.

3) getting all my lines in one take. the woman handling the audition actually apologized to me for making me wait longer than my audition itself. not bad for a first-timer. i hope that means i'll get a project soon. :-)

4) the stepford wives. i enjoyed this, the first non-cutesy comedy i've seen in a while. bette midler was a hoot, glenn close was freaky, and the reality tv show parodies were quite funny. nicole kidman is alarmingly skinny, though.

5) talking to mayte about studying in spain. she's home for a vacation and she's soooooooo skinny! she talked to me about scholarships in spain, which are apparently much easier to get than the fulbright or chevening grants that everyone lusts for. loi and mimoy pointed out that maraming magagaling na singers galing sa spain (think montserrat caballe), so this possibility has given me renewed hope. apparently the best thing about the spanish scholarships (fifteen a year, extended to the philippines presumably to make up for three centuries of colonial abuse) is the 1,000 Euro stipend. they're practically paying you to go study there. viva españa!

Sunday

1) sleeping in until 11:30 a.m. utter bliss.

2) rehearsals. i just looove, loooove, looove our rep. even thomas jennefelt's two anthems, strange as they are, are growing on me. (we have gotten to the point where aui actually called them "witty"). i woke up last wednesday with gyorgy orban's "mundi renovatio" running non-stop in my head. acs was at its balahuric best at the peaks of john p's "ama namen", which we hadn't rehearsed for over a month! and of course, eric whitacre's gorgeous, gorgeous "i thank You god for most this amazing day"--if it wasn't so heavy, i'd want it sung at my wedding. so much fun to sing the ff's on the first page when you're all relaxed and properly warmed up, not dashing in from work or half-dead from a rush-hour commute. i can't wait for our next rehearsal-- am so excited to sing john tavener's "song for athene" again.

3) acs's de buena familia (DBF) acquaintance party. although the acquaintance party bit died after high school, we revived the concept to welcome all of the new people who joined us this year. since we all love a good theme party (past themes: kiddie, pajamas, eighties --way before the eighties became trendy again--, tea and strumpets, pabaduyan), loi outdid himself organizing this year's DBF party. taking a cue from our penchant for making up telenovelas on tour, he made it a sign-up-for-your-costume costume party. he had this long roster of DBF and dukha roles that people had to register for. some of them were really fun to dress up for: pia's social climber, tor's tindera ng sampaguita, jonel's DI, ayie's bulag na anak ng katulong, dada's public high school principal na laging humihingi ng donation.

thanks to my heritage, i was awarded the role of deepak okra, bumbay na alahera (no surprise there, bumbay na naman ako). i had my mom's jewelry in ziploc bags and a notebook to list orders. my best customer (prospective, anyway, as i didn't make any sales that night) was the glamorous ma'am bitchik, who was, ironically enough, dressed up as a yaya. she and mama rosa ooohed and aaahed over all the pieces, and berated me for not price-tagging them beforehand.

4) too much food. again. although it was supposed to be a potluck party, jay tamayo decided to do make it his birthday treat as well and employed our staple caterers, the ever-dependable barrio fiesta. barrio was also responsible for the bongga table settings and buffet line, which made the tamayos' place quite authentic for a DBF party. "sabi niyo de buena, diba? o ayan, de buena!" said jay when we walked in the front door.

5) robin as electronika, the evil contrabida. let me just work on posting pics asap, because nothing i say will do justice to the real thing. nothing at all.