The other day, I was at the NOISE BARRAGE along Katipunan Ave. in
front of Ateneo. The theme was for the sleeping majority to wake up to the
great danger of the Philippines slipping back to the dark ages, where allied interested
foreign investors would leave us. Talk at informal gatherings highlighted the
possibility of avoiding this worst-case scenario by fair or foul means.
This morning, I decide to de-stress, shift gears going back
to yesteryears – our familiar good old days as described by a contemporary writer
.
OUR LIFE
THEN AND NOW . . .
When she was in her mid-life, her 30s,
my mother, who was widowed at 22, of course, went out on dates. Sometimes she
would take me along. Usually her dates were pretty boring for me because I
would sit alone at the table while she and her date danced. Then one night we
went to the Bulakena night club, which was across the side street from Bulakena
restaurant.
OK, what is Bulakena? It was one of the
restaurants of my time. It competed with Max’s fried chicken. I think they
served chicken with honey. It had a little more class than Max’s. As they
became more successful they added a nightclub.
Now what is a nightclub? A nightclub is
the predecessor of the disco. Now I think there are clubs with horrendous loud
music and atrocious flashing lights. In the ’50s to the ’60s we had nightclubs,
always dark with candles on the tables. There was always nice dance music
provided by an orchestra and there was always a torch singer who would sing
what we called torch songs. What are torch songs? They are songs about
love, heartbreak, loss, no screaming like they do now, just soft whispery
tunes, my mother’s type of music, which I have grown to love much more than the
music of my era.
One night when I was around 10 years
old my mom went on a date to Bulakena and brought me along. There I saw the
torch singer, Carmen Soriano, perform. She was beautiful and I liked the way
she sang. She was wearing a skintight black lace dress with a low neckline and
sequins. She looked so sexy and she sang sexily. While my mother and her
date danced, I sat mesmerized thinking — I want to be like her when I
grow up.
But it was not to be. I got married at
18, went to work at 24. Worked through till I was 57 then I had a stroke. It
took me six years to get my old personality back, to teach writing, to learn
how to make jewelry, to knit and sew again. One day I realized I was old, I had
no more dreams, I was just waiting to die.
Then one of my friends sang. I loved
his voice. I asked him where he studied singing. He recommended Papo Pardo, a
friend of ours, the son of Tess Cordero Pardo, who was a friend of mine who
passed away young. “He teaches?” I exclaimed. “Give me his number.”
And there began the dream. I will learn
how to sing. I give myself two years to develop my voice. Then I will have a
show at a nightclub where I will wear a sexy gown and sing torch songs from the
heart. Why not? Eartha Kitt was singing onstage in Paris in her 80s. I can
debut at 74.
So now I am busy planning this show.
Starting in May I will start exercising to get my body in shape for my act.
Maybe I’ll get into some sexy shape again. Once I was very sexy but I let go.
My father’s older sister, Flor, was a
nightclub singer. She played the piano and sang. She was very pretty and
very sexy and she had four husbands. The last time I saw her she told me she
thought I was the one who had inherited her daring. So now I shall dare but not
without careful preparation.
One of my childhood friends from the
Ateneo sent an email to all his friends saying that to fight getting older they
had to learn how to play a musical instrument. This was widely circulated to
all his friends. I answered him only, told him of my plans to debut as a
nightclub singer at the ripe old age of 74. Will you come and bring all your
Atenean friends with you and clap for me? He said, Of course, but you have to
find a place big enough to accommodate all of us and our wheelchairs because
we’re all septuagenarians.
I must confess I love having this
dream. It has given my life new meaning. I look forward to my singing classes.
I go to YouTube, look for the songs I like, watch so many singers sing it,
choose the one whose style I like best and learn. One of these days I have to
sit and figure out my repertoire. Then suddenly I think, what if I die before I
can do a show?
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that
now I am preparing and it gives me many things to do. After all, what’s the
cliché? It’s not the destination that matters, it’s the trip!
* * *
Awakened, I realize the stressful plight of our country. We
need to get our acts together and do what needs to be done. So, look up from
your world of delusion . . .
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