donger need food.

Botach. 0 Balloons. Call Me Ice Queen

The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.

I had a blast in L.A. this weekend. My hat goes off to my fellow LIKHA dancers and musicians for a kick ass show. It was a good thing, too, because I roll into work this morning and suddenly the world gets dropped on my desk. It's gonna be a rough year indeed...I'm being presented with a great opportunity to move my career forward in my company, I'm juggling multiple projects outside of work, there's the France/Amsterdam tour (I've never been to Europe) and the Philippines trip (I haven't been back since 1977!) -- and with some luck and a lot of money, my brother and I can catch MotoGP and F1. But before all that: a brief recap of the World City Festival before the fresh memories fade from my brain (warning, this gets kinda long)…

Thursday
We all met up in Fremont on Thursday night to load up the vans. Earlier in the week after practicing percussion, I sat down with Ed & Angelo to make a list of all the instruments that we needed for the show. Stupid me forgot to print it out at work and was too lazy to power up the laptop at the house -- so I relied on memory (mine & everyone else's) to make sure things were all there. Finally left at close to 8 instead of the planned 7PM because of a few folks who were late (who shall go nameless). I'm glad that Gary brought his walkie talkies because I couldn't find mine. They sure made the drive entertaining. Remember that bit about a checklist? Well, about two and a half hours into the drive, I pinged Angelo on the little black Uniden radio: "Angelo, did you pack the tanggunggo stand?" You see, I alone had packed all the big bulky items while the rest of the folks ate inside -- it helps my concentration when I'm not around a lot of anxious talking people. And that's not all...we left the kulintang stand. And an octavina (for Bagobo). Damnit, I wish I printed that checklist out...this trip is off to a great start. Well, at least we had some fun on the way down trying to get the overhead DVD players to work in our vans. And I was crackin’ up at Tin’s “over, ksshhhhh” after every radio communiqué. But boy, do those vans SUCK. Uncomfortable seats, no high RPM power, and understeer up the wazoo with those all season tires and two tons of steel. The satellite radio, DVD players, were a nice touch though – and a tape player for my iRiver!

We made good time and rolled in around 1AM. While everyone stretched outside, I walked in with Warren to go help in the checkin process. The lady at the front desk (what are they called again?) goes to lookup our reservation but can’t seem to find it. Hm, that’s odd… So she searches by confirmation number and eventually finds it – turns out we didn’t have any rooms booked for the night. And we were only booked for Friday night, no rooms for Saturday either.

Right.

Not wanting to stress out the situation further, I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and let Warren do his thing. To make a long story short, we all agreed to split up the cost among the group (~$50/person) with Warren fronting the cost. [In the end, it all eventually worked out with the show paying for the Thursday & Saturday night rooms.] It didn’t hit me how exhausted I was until I got to our room – I was totally delirious, unable to focus and on the verge of hurling (it could’ve been exhaustion, or it could’ve been that cigarette, my first in a long time).

Friday
So…things looked up on Friday. While the rest of the group ate breakfast and practiced at the hotel before the run-through at the theater, Angelo, OJ, Rich and I went to Home Depot in Eagle Rock to go build ourselves a tanggunggo stand. $65 and 20 minutes of design decisions later, we were back off to the hotel room with 4 pieces of 1x2x8 pine, eyelets, twine, bolts, washers, wingnuts, drill bits, and a 3/8” variable speed reversible drill (corded!). But before that, it was a much anticipated stop at Roscoe’s House of Chicken N’ Waffles on Pico & La Brea. Mmmm, mmmm...good. Way better than the non-Roscoe’s joint in Oakland. Better waffles, juicy chicken. The grits, however, were just OK. Maybe they needed more butter?

So the Home Depot trip (and some drilling in the hotel room) took care of the tanggunggo stand. Foam and some creative muslim garb took care of the kulintang, and Bryan’s brother took care of the octavina. Phew, disaster averted. If I have to do this again, I’m never going without a checklist.

After a decent practice session at the theater, we all headed back to the hotel and rested. OJ, Vince and I took a stroll around the music center (a block away) to grab some photos. Quite relaxing. For dinner after practice, I took a bunch of us out to Tommy’s Original Hamburgers in Eagle Rock. Mmmmmm…heartburn.

Later that night, courtesy of Angelo’s cousin, the musicians (sans one) got into the club on the roof of The Standard. Definitely had a great time. (:

Saturday
I don’t know if it was this particular batch of performers or the stress of Thursday’s misfortunes or the emotional green room scolding by Herna, but everyone rocked it. (Except for that small miscue in the first dance of the first show by yours truly – sorry!!) There was a moment during Bagobo were I finally experienced what all the other musicians have been telling me about. Sitting at the base of the tanggunggo stand playing that rhythm melody, I briefly turned around, really listened to the 5 of us all going at it on the instruments (and we were on!) and looked at the dancers moving in time, with the audience behind them totally riveted, the bamboo poles pounding into the stage…I got chills up and down my spine. I was so happy reveling in that very moment, on the verge of breaking down, I had to regain composure and keep on playing. Got damn! what an amazing feeling. I wish I could have it all the time. The second show was even better, with the audience so completely responsive. Oh, what fun.

Afterwards, everyone took a much-needed break resting in the hotel rooms. Lunch was Mexican food at Ye Olde Taco House #1 (I’m not kidding) that we spotted the day before on the way to Home Depot. It was a block away so we all enjoyed a nice 10-minute saunter in the lovely, sunny SoCal weather. The food was just OK…not enough guacamole in my carne asada burrito. And they forgot the sour cream on my rolled tacos. And the horchata wasn’t sweet enough for my tastes. But at least they had all meat burritos! Woo hoo! After eating lunch in the courtyard, I decided to head off to Santa Monica Pier to grab some photos at sunset. Vince and Christian decided to come with, but fools left their key in the hotel room!! So we ended up being a little late to wait for security to reopen the room. We missed sunset by a few minutes. Oh well – at least I was able to see the beach. And fair warning to all you amateur night photographers out there. Christian got hassled everywhere he went because he was carrying a tripod. An undercover cop actually escorted him to the security office to sign a waiver that he wasn’t going to use the photos professionally. And, he was told not to put down 3 legs on the tripod (only use it as a monopod) because it was a safety hazard. Got-damn we live in a litigious country. Un-f*ckin-believeable.

So anyways, made it back to the room in time to hit Citywalk for Bryan’s pre-birthday festivities (Happy Birthday Bryan!). We had warm up drinks and appetizers at Hard Rock, while the others had Cuban food at Versailles (I shoulda tried some with them, I heard it was really good! – oh well, next time na lang). After that, Rich & Mur suggested a karaoke bar - Whizzo the bartender recommended Dimples in Burbank. Looking at the website now, it turns out that this was the first karaoke bar to open up in America. Interesting. Bryan and all the girls got up to do Erotic City and had a great time. (Incriminating video to be posted later). On the way back to the hotel, stupid inebriated me forgot to close out my tab (and so did Manok). So one van headed back to pick up the bill. OJ affectionately signed mine, “Andre.” Yeah. Picked up some folks at the hotel and off we went to Little Temple in Silver Lake to finish the night off with more drinking and dancing. It sadly ended up getting finished by some whack-ass scratching. But nonetheless, we all had a great time! Back to the room for one last hurrah -- a tsismis session before we all went to sleep, where "one conversation toppled into another".

Sunday
Strangely enough, I was able to pull off the six hour drive back home with no issues. The exhaustion didn’t really hit me until after we dropped off the vans (while we were eating dinner at Tony Roma’s). And on the way home from Fremont on the San Mateo Bridge, there was a stretch where I think I was asleep. (Mental note…make sure you don’t assign all sub-25 year-olds in your van). At least I was able to exact some revenge, waking up the sleeping younguns with a nice big whiff of Cowalinga's finest through wide open windows. hehehehe.


Pictures here.

Well, that’s it... If you got this far, you're probably wondering about that title. The picture is of a place right across the street from Roscoe's. Any theories? (We never figured it out).

posted by VirtualErn @ 10:02 PM

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