BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol I, No. 8
Oct 27, 2004
by Dulz Cuna
CONTENTS
Website:
LIFESTYLE:
Bar Mystic
My neighborhood boasts (or unboasts) of a watering pit in the crossroad fringes of the City. I do frequent that place before I plop down to my unmade bed at the end of the day. It's a Bar called “Akustik”.
Before I make a beeline to my “hovel” at the back of some rich Taipan's grand manor in our subdivision, I pass this studio-lighted joint where the tired, urban euphoria-seeking denizens of Tacloban City creep. The owner, Socrates “Koko” Calingag welcomes me to his comfortable berth with a swagger like Humphrey Bogart's. He's a guitarist---played around SEA countries before he settled in his hometown playing with the City Band. Now, trying something new, he decides to open a Music Bar with live music performers on a dais (I mean not piped-in music from a component system), a sprinkle of tables and chairs, acoustically stationed speakers, agile waiters, a stir-fry maestro, and a shrewd cashier. “Set” performers vary every night except Sundays when the Bar takes a respite from all that drinking. Appropriately, the joint positions itself across San Miguel Brewery in the main street.
I usually do my beeline every Tuesday nights or Fridays, or on Saturdays when Koko invites noted performers who play music of past popular tunes in a set called “SmoothBlast.” In some nights the young 'uns do the dais. My son Duane and chum Titan do a duo and sing songs termed “Neo-Punk” by artists like Goldfinger, Mest, Green Day, Zebrahead, and I sit flabbergasted in my chair, archaic with my music literature. . . . A month earlier, guitar virtuoso Peter Dejarme was the mainstay. He usually calls me up to sing and jam. Blues . . . I get Ellaed, Sarahed or Dinahed . . . with Peter's guitar ministrations. . . . Thus I awaken my 40ish and 50ish customers drooling at their tables. . . . With Peter on leave now, Koko gets used to my syncopated timing and sighs in relief when I shift to standards, folk, and country.
At 12 a.m. the duo of Koko and Peter greet the new day with the Akustik anthem: Chick Corea's “Spain” as the main entree and Lee Ritenour, Earl Klugh, or Jeff Beck on the side. Their tandem is the Highlight of the evening. There's a clamor for rounds of beer, bar chow and song requests. . . .
It is at this joint, I confess, I experience “Samadhi” like some monk under a banyan tree. At my favorite table beside the dais, I get into a total absorption of the place. I could feel each and everyone's thoughts, dreams and emotions in complete orchestration. The place is an Intelligence itself . . . albeit artificial.
Some nights, a lonely doctor comes and chummies up with Koko and Peter . . . drinks his beer by the gallon and dozes on his seat. His dentures often fall out and the exasperated waiter picks it up with a napkin and puts it on his plate . . . the nearby table breaks out in loud guffaws.
A philandering husband brings in a sweet young thing and hides in the bathroom while a frazzled, house-tog- clad woman comes peeking in. Conscious that everybody stares at her, she leaves in a huff, mumbling invectives.
Noisy, just-out-of-teenhood boys come in . . . crack jokes, pass around a packet of cigarettes, drink loads of Colt 45s and position their cellphone's RDA reception to the speakers, so when an SMS comes in, it creates a galloping static in the amps, much to the consternation of Koko . . . “torutxt, turotxt, turotxt . . . tu-toot, tu-toot”.
Family groups like a “Dadsgivingusablow-out” thing troop in toting Lola in with ever-ready earplugs. When Dad gets the mike in “audience participation” after he takes one bottle over another, he'll sing a Jim Croce with his ready-made juvenile audience orchestrated to clap. Mom drools and says he could have been a big-time folksinger if he had not married her . . . Lola obliviously seconds the motion. . . .
A brawny but not-so-goodlooking goon in a fitted shirt and Singapore gold trinkets come in with powder-weary faced ladies. He orders a six-pack and some bar chow which are snubbed by his companions. He motions to Peter if his lady-friend here could croon out an old-time favorite: “This Masquerade”. His fat belt bag seems to be too heavy on his side. . . .
At this point my ergo psychology gets haywire . . . I must confess I seem to intrude in the privacy of these people I come across in the bar. These people are laid out to me like a cool spread of Tarot Cards in a reading. I could almost immerse myself in their worlds, in their universes, in their “Weltanschaunng” . . . the Bar becomes my library of lives I read with my mind in the intense copulation of beer and music. . . . My Samadhi is as blissful as my synaesthetic senses. . . .
Trudging home, with the euphoria of the evening, the subdivision dogs bark at me no more . . . I may be Bacchanalia with my Beer in the head, but I'm thankful I've sung a song or two at Akustik Bar, with an unbearable lightness . . . that I could only drag reality along. . . .
"These people are laid out to me like a cool spread of Tarot Cards in
a reading. I could almost immerse myself in their worlds, in their
universes, in their “Weltanschaunng” . . . the Bar becomes my library of
lives . . ."