a drinking story

friday last week, i watched campus idol since three of my orgmates joined the search: jok, rocky and mitch. they had a talent portion where they had to sing and the search was like the american idol competition. so they had someone famous like wency cornejo on the board. there was also a search for an hip-hop dance group and among the 3 contestants, the up streetdance club, unsurprisingly, won. but i dunno what authority wency has to have a say on the dance competition. he's not a dancer for gods's sakes. anyway, he also wasn't a very good judge. he was making comments that were not warranted or he wasn't making comments that should be said at all. and jok was really pissed at him. anyway, the one who won this competition was a tenor, a music major - siyempre di ba? - who sang this is the moment. but my golly, when he spoke, he had this really thin voice. oh well, the suprirses signers bring us.

alessa and i planned to stay overnight at their house in sta. mesa because we were going to practice for their mini-program the coming thursday wherein we will be playing some love songs. so when we went to watch campus idol, she already brought along her keyboards and i brought along my guitar. it was the ga before that, and gino had been asking everyone to have a little drink afterwards. so after the campus idol search, we did. however, my group composed of r.a., alessa, jok and yves were left behind since we still commuted from up to bartolo's, just opposite the mini-stop at the teacher's village.

when we arrived there, we also had no table so we had to wait awhile outside for some to clear out. when we finally got a seat, one of my orgmates borrowed my guitar. so they began singing. then when tet played mariposa, the whole place, which was not bigger than our room at the boarding house and every table full of people with some peeps already way drunk, started singing along. as in everyone. and some peeps at another table had a shaker and a cahon with them so they started jamming with the song. astig! as in we didn't know all the other peeps there, it's just us orgmates and them other people in 3 or four tables and everybody was singing along. the guitar was passed around and eventually, a guy at the other table played it and the songs that everybody sang to, if i remember them correctly, were perfect by true faith, shake yer head by the eraserheads, to be with you by mr. big and even kitchie nadal's wag na wag mong sasabihin. it ws really a very cool moment. r.a. also had his chimes along with him so jok brought it out and a really drunk skater guy was having fun with it.

it was a really, really cool night. imagine everyone in that place who did not know those at the other table singing to one song. such is the power of music. since everyone grew up to almost the same songs, everyone has this nostalgic feeling and singing it at such a time when everyone's trying to have fun while drinking is something that's really natural. it was a really powerful moment, when you could unite everyone with just a song. the person beside me who belongs to another table was eventually talking to me, though he was not the type of person who i'd normally walk up to to inquire about something or make small talk.

the barangay police eventually showed up near the place since everybody was already making a racket with the number of people singing so the proprietor asked us to lower our voices. they also tried closing the front door and the windows. i thought i was gonna suffocate from cigarette smoke but when the proprietor announced that they were closing at 12 since that was the rule, my orgmates decided to leave already. so thank God i was saved from such a tragedy. anyway, what matters was that time when everybody was singing to the same song. i hate the smoke but these moments, they last. 'twas a really cool night.