Friday night was Namets at Instituto Cervantes, a Bacolodian food movie that played out like a long TV commercial for toothpaste (i.e. Close-Up) with short films interspersed of unrelated characters and their food fetishes (i.e., how to make the perfect dipping sauce of chicken inasal). It was ok but a little on the slow side, but then again just about the speed of life in Bacolod. Left the theater starving. As we were already in Malate, decided to drive through our old favorites to see which one might be our food fetish for the evening... Nakpil, Adriatico, Remedios. What a disaster! The restaurants we knew ALL disappeared save for Casa Armas and Bistro Remedios and replaced by a generic form of Korean resto-bar-videoke spilling over onto the streets that had set up monobloc tables and chairs filled with the beer drinking. It's gone down down down. We tried to park to eat at Bistro Remedios but just couldn't bring ourselves to. Headed back home and passed Ineng's BBQ, it looked sadder than sad with the flickering flourescent lights and faded plastic, so we ditched the idea too.
Ended up at Apartment 1B for porkchops and corn chowder, food and service were excellent, But sitting outside in the open air (which people really just use as the smoking section), we were sandwiched between a trio of young DOM's talking about their golf game (I want to call it a 'pata-asan ng ihi' conversation) and a trio of older colehiyalas talking about their DOM problems (2 of them were current 'kabits').
There was no tangible psychic income to the night out except for the question... what are we doing here?
Relief at getting home to the dog was the highlight.
Then Saturday evening happened... in a nutshell:
1. drinks and great conversation with Adi and Carlos and Tesa and company at the Living Room (rule #1: find like minded people that you like),
2. a stop at the CCP front lawn to watch a video and sound projection (rule #2: know the CCP schedule),
3. we found the new branch of JT's Manukan on Malugay Street in Makati, where all 9 of us ate paa, pecho, pakpak, garlic rice with chicken oil to our hearts content (with Korean food from next door care of our vegetarian), all for the bargain basement price of P200 each, with drinks na yun (rule #3: find out if the far-flung restaurants you like have nearby branches)
Ended up back at the Living Room, where we had three deserts and time with Bogart the dog, and more conversation and company while watching Carlos on his Air Stepper.
Psychic tangible income (PTI) is the over-all benefit from doing something or being somewhere. More than money, it is what drives people, it is what drives me. And Manila on its own, with the overpopulation, pollution (both visceral and visual), and anarchy has very very low PTI; but then it's about the people, the ones we do like that make the difference in raising the PTI. Which brought someone to ask, how do we secede from the PH and start our own country?
Image: Jose Tence Ruiz's studio, getting ready for Bukod Tanging Pag-Ibig at SLab. SLab and Silverlens are huge suppliers of Psychic Tangible Income.
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