What a Year!
Feels like the last one I had.
Boring!
What’s this a re-run?
Naaaah!
There is probably something different about this one,
something that’ll suprise me enough to blow me away.
Let us see whats cooking…
Months have passed, I just folded up my shop at K-Zone city and I’ve nothing else to do. The year is midway through and time is wasting away, and so was my savings.
I’m starting to get depressed!
Here I sit, checking my well checked e-mail, browsing over my friend’s friendster profile, waiting for some miracle to happen. No e-mail so far, no SMS either. I’ll wait a bit longer.
Aha! An SMS from Sarge! Says our friend Agoy is around and about. They’re hanging out at Tia Maria’s in Malate Manila, showing around Agoy’s kick-boxer brother-in-law who came all the way from the Netherlands. They’ve decided to take a peek at a new bar named "Punch-Me" just across Adriatico street and asked me to catch up with them. James called in sick so I had to jump on this one alone. And off I went… Malate! Here I come!
Malate happens to be a couple of blocks away from where I live, so I chose to take a brisk walk instead, which also served as an excercise and also to pick up some smokes at a nearby 711. The place was’nt hard to find, since they had a large streamer hung up across the street lights which almost flapped on everyones face. As I walked towards the bars entrance, I stared at their streamer with a large "PUNCH ME" boldly written on it. I figured the bar would have some concauction of some sort that would hit the lights out of me… well, I reckoned I had to check it out.
Okay, there I was standing in front of the flight of stairs leading to the 3rd floor. So much for my brisk walk dude! Anyway, as I walked up the steps I noticed some pounding sounds which sounded like sacks of rice dropped from the top floor accompanied by shouts, cheers, and jeers. Upon entering the doorstep, a bright light which looked like stage lights glared into my eyes, revealing to me two half naked sweat bourne bodies. The cheering and jeering continued. Seems like a brawl was going on. The sounds reminded me of saloon bar brawls I used to see on Hollywood cowboy films seen in classic movies. I thought there was a fight going on. And indeed, there really was!
Two guys with shirts off were beating the hell out of each other. One grabbing the other by the waist as the other lay supine on the floor with his legs wrapped around the others stomach throwing punches on the other guys ears and cheeks. Blood and sweat scattered as both threw big blows of punches at each other. It was a real brawl. I paused for a while, noticing the squarelike boundary which appered to be a boxing ring. Was this a sparring area for training boxers or what? I must’ve entered the wrong door! "Uhhhh…" i said to myself "I think I should be leaving now. This looks like a gym of some sort. I might be disturbing their practice." As I was about to turn back, some strange and familiar figure flashed at the corner of my eye….
"Wait a second…who is that I see at the ringside?"
"Sarge?"…
"Agoy?" …It’s hard to miss Sarge’s shiny bald head and Agoy’s devilish smirk planted in a crowd of blank faces. It was only then when I noticed the tables on the ringside were filled with bottles of beer and snacks, with few waiters there walking around taking orders. This was not a practice area. This was a bar. The bar they were telling me about… "Punch Me!"
HAHAHA!!! WOOOOOOHHHOOOO!!!
COOLNESS!!
As I peered over the ringside Sarge and Agoy caught a glimpse of me and called me over. At this time, the 1st fight was over and the MC started reading the judges results to the crowd. Laughing as I approached the table, Sarge and Agoy offered me a seat, introduced me to Che’s (Agoy’s wife) brother and his foreign girlfriend (also from Netherlands), and offered me some beer for starters. I sat down in amazement as I looked around the place where we were drinking. I said to myself "Whew-wee! Man! This is something else! Drinking beer with your buddies while watching a live kick-boxing match all at the same time!" Now what could be cooler than that?
The winner was then announced and it was time for an intermission.
Whoowee!
Lights,
Camera-Phone,
Action!!!
Yeah!
Its the Ring Girls! Skimpily dressed, sexy bodied babes walked passed by our side of the ring and climbed onto the canvas and positioned themselves at the center of the plane while the R&B sounds started pumping up. Watch ‘em pink minnies flap! Oohh Yeah!!
After every match there were very entertaining intermissions. So we drank on, enjoyed the night cheering and jeering. I never had the chance to follow how much beer I consumed since I was too engrossed watching the succeeding fights and them intermission numbers of course; who’d miss that. 3am came and the place had to come to a close, we finished up our beers and decided to chill out in some other bar. We downed a couple of bottles, while the others had coffee. I got home and hit the sack thinking…
Punch Me! RACCOON!!!
Hehehe… my friend Bryan SMS’ed me that they’ll be needing ours and some of our acquaintances presence to pose as extras (audience/crowd/fans) as they were going to have a photo shoot of their up-coming album "The Pinup Girls". Their track "Love X ten." The video featured a cute lady and Tado, a really funny looking guy who played one of the main characters of their music video.
Lights…Camera….Action! As the director hollers, everyone and everything was set in place. The band starts to play along with their overdub, the audience begins to cheer, the actors started acting. All we had to do was to act out as if we were having a drinking spree (which we did) while a funny behind the scenes love encounter was about to happen. Basically that was the flow of the show, and I really did not get the story well, as I soberly recalled.
Anyways, the photo and video shoot took a while, a few more takes meant a few more beers. Uric, James and I grew quite intoxicated but happy. We downed about 8 bottles of beer that afternoon. Such a feat huh? 
Bryan (rhythm/vocals) was a real friend, and so was Mondo (lead guitarist/vocalist) and Jeng (bassist/vocals) and Mitch (drummer). We all enjoyed the whole afternoon "drinking for a cause" which was to be Bryan’s friends and fans for the day. And by the way, they sounded pretty good, and their video did and looked good as well.
To the Pin-up Girls , and Bryan! RACCOON!!!
