Scenes From Subic

Corporate Closet took the Mazda MX5 for a test drive. He chose to drive the yellow one, even though it wasn’t the kind of yellow he wanted. He’s this close to really buying one. If he does, his moving on would be complete. Bwhahaha! (evil laftir)

The Macallan. Single malt scotch whiskey. 12 years old. It was really f**king great sh*t. My current officemates saw me for the first time in my “dance party Energizer bunny” mode during the first night chill-out party hosted by us. The Macallan (and several shots of tequila) fueled my dance-cardio routine that continued way after the others stopped dancing. Afterwards P, our resident tri-athlete, turned to me and exclaimed: “You should join a triathlon!”

The next night I was again in my “dance party Energizer bunny” mode for the Marlboro Party (so far most people have said that it was the best of all the parties during the Ad Congress). And they spared no expense for it: gigantic LED screens spanning the length of the stage, world-class DJs, Rico Blanco on guitars, live singers, costumed dancers, fireworks, balloons. And the most important element to a successful party? Free-flowing booze, from beer to vodka to whiskey and back! I ended up dancing onstage in front of the DJ’s booth. Hey, it was a Friday evening; I had to make up for my absence in Bed!

Whatsup! Whatsup! “Bugnaw” is Bisaya for “cold” (why there’s Bisaya in Subic is anybody’s guess). No wonder the sodas were also in Bisaya.

Where else can you find a pine tree co-existing with a coconut tree?


To attract the crowds to our booth, we showed the pilot episode of Glee and the Pacquiao-Cotto fight. We attracted maybe two Gleeks. But when we played the fight, there was sudden queue of people wanting to get freebies at our booth.

Chilling out at the beach front with Corporate Closet. If you look closely, you could see our reflection on CC’s shades.

* * * * *

We were in Subic for five days, but by the third night we felt like we were there for a week. I wonder how the Congress would have fared had it pushed through in Baguio.

And no, I didn’t get lucky at this Congress, unlike the last one and the one before—but let’s not get into that.

House About It?

Because our bosses heard our horror stories about our former bold-star-turned-hostess Ms. AP, they decided to pull us out of there and place us in a house that our admin people rented. The good news? The admin peeps were leaving Friday morning, so we could take over the house they were vacating. The bad news? The house is old, as in creepy old. Last night one of our officemates saw someone carrying a fairly large shoulder bag go down the stairs; she decided to follow her downstairs. When she got to the ground floor, no one was there.

“From Kooky House to Spooky House” should be the title of this weekend.

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part Two

Here is the second of three parts, the continuation of CC's Mr. Ripley encounter:

Download this fabcast (right click and save)

Music credits:
“Live To Tell” by Madonna
“Right Here Waiting” by Richard Marx
“Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson

Subic Adventure

We needed to set up our booth and event venue for the Ad Congress, so we left for Subic a day earlier.

We arrive around dinnertime and proceeded to our rented house. It turns out to be the house owned by a former bold star in the 80s(?), Ms. AP. We decided to just drop our luggage off and proceed to eat dinner out. But while waiting for the others to finish settling in their stuff, our hostess arrived to greet us.

In just a t-shirt and shorts. With her nipples obviously making their mark.

And her daughter accompanied her; she looks like she’s not more than 10 years old. And she is a special child.

After a few minutes of chatting with the hostess (and attempts to chat with her daughter), we left for dinner. In our shuttle, we raised the weird vibes we got from our hostess and her daughter.

“Did you hear how she talks to her child?”

“Did you notice she was bra-less?!”

“Did you notice how perky she was? Or rather, they were?”

“Was she high, or on something?”

“Was she all there?”

So a couple of us flipped open their laptop and Google’d our host. And it turns out our host figured in a vehicular incident here in Subic—she ran over and killed two people while under the influence of alcohol.

Cue in Psycho music.

When we came back to the house, AP was there waiting for us. She knew we were going to be drinking that night at her patio area, so she decided to join us.

After a few shots she was already drunk and started telling her sob stories. Then she asked two of our boys to accompany her because she needed to pee. While walking her towards the bathroom, the boys were shocked when she suddenly pulled her shorts down, squatted and pee’d. They just looked away as she calmly finished her business.

Eventually they were able to convince her to go to sleep. The guys finished drinking at around 3am, but managed to clean up the patio area before retiring.

The next morning we woke up to the sound of rustling and furtive movement in the patio area. When one of us came out to smoke, lo and behold, he saw four huge-ass monkeys rummaging through our stuff and trash. Two of them had already opened a bag of chips and was on their way to finishing it off. He and the monkeys looked at each other for a second. Then all bolted in the opposite direction, our guy back to his room and the monkeys towards the trees in the backyard.

It’s going to be a memorable Ad Congress for us.

At The Big Dome, In Pics

Cross at the South Gate, the players’ entrance.

Excitement palpable, the crowd lets out its first gigantic roar when they announced the main event up next.

I found it silly and ironic that Ever Bilena would advertise in a bloody sport. It’s tagline? “Beauty in you.” D’uh.

The champ on top of his game…

…and on top of the world.

The roaring, stomping, cheering crowd.

From Araneta to MGM Grand, the crowd cheers for Pacquiao.



The big screens go down in less than an hour, to make way for the PBA.

Big Crowd At The Big Dome

It’s quite ironic that, given my new job, I was never into sports a lot. Except for the Most Valuable Player medal I won back in grade school for volleyball, I was never that athletic. And the only sports I do watch are figure skating and the occasional male diving coverage.

So it was with detached disinterest that I approached my assignment to attend the viewing of the Pacquiao-Cotto match at the Araneta Coliseum. We were there to make sure everything went well.

At first my boss was worried that the venue won’t be full. Glancing at the rapidly filling-up stadium, I told her, “It’s four-fifths full already! Don’t worry.”

Four 30 foot-wide screens flashed the live-via-satellite footage from Las Vegas. The crowd was already reacting loudly to the pre-event fights. And when the GMA-7 plugs came on, a loud boo rose from them. (They didn’t react negatively with the trailer of Manny’s movie Wapakman, but I guess they’ll never boo anything that has their hero in it, right?)

When Manny was shown with Jinky on his right and Willie Revillame on his left, people started hooting. When Willie put his hand around Manny’s hand, people jeered.

The main event: a thunderous roar from the crowd as Many and Cotto start the fight. I wanted to stay outside, by the south side entrance, because I thought I couldn’t stand the excitement magnified more than a thousand times over with this massive crowd. Good thing my boss insisted we watch at the courtside (where the PBA Commissioners are seated).

Great idea.

When Cotto stumbled the first time, the crowd went wild. As in, wild. They stood up, fists jabbing the air, yelling at the massive screens, “Manny! Manny! Manny!” as if the Pambansang Kamao would hear the collective chant an ocean away. And when Manny had Cotto kneeling down again, the crowd was ecstatic, augmenting their cheering with stomping. Every time a 30-foot close-up of Cotto’s swollen face flashed onscreen, the crowd laughed and cheered.

And yet Cotto proved to be a wilier and tougher opponent. His fancy footwork actually helped keep him away from most of Manny’s blistering blitzkrieg punches. And by the eighth round the crowd had a feeling that a knock-out by Manny may be harder to come by.

So when the referee halted the fight on the twelfth and final round, the cheer was massive but not as charged as when Cotto went down twice. Perhaps the crowd sensed victory early on. Perhaps people were hoping Manny could connect that one deadly punch to bring Cotto down, and were disappointed that a knock out didn’t materialize.

Still.

When the lights went on, the coliseum folks gave us the actual attendance figures: 18,303 people. That was 18,303 people roaring, cheering, clapping and stomping; there were more people there than in MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was truly a massive SRO crowd that I think only a Manny Pacquiao the boxer can attract. (As for Manny the singer and Manny the politician, his appeal is much more limited.)

Post-fight, Mario Lopez interviewed Manny in the ring. While watching it, I received an SMS from my brother: “The post-fight interview with Manny. Where the real butchering happens. LOL.”

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part One

The Fabcasters sans (sans!) Migs, Tony and AJ, and together with Bruno sans aphorisms and new-to-the-peanut-gallery Apple, met up to hear, for the first time from the seahorse’s mouth himself, the story behind Corporate Closet’s talented Mister Ripley.

Listen to part 1 here (16 mins 36 sec).

Download this episode (right click and save)

Music credits:
“Imaginary Lover” by Atlanta Rhythm Section
“Live To Tell” by Madonna