Gretchen Barretto greeted me at the foyer as I walked in.
Got your undivided attention, right? Success. So I’ll continue in that vein.
Where I walked in was Warehouse on Yakal St. in Makati, which was closed off last Wednesday night for a private party for us privileged all-nighters — friends of the still-dashing birthday celebrator, Tony Boy Cojuangco.
I bussed Gretchen and complimented her on her elegant loveliness — classy gamine looks highlighted by a waif-ish short bob with slight bangs falling diametrically over one side of her brows. Having given her the good news, I pushed my luck. But you’re so slim naman you look anorexic na, I added.
“Really?” she chortled. “Tony Boy’s inside.”
I knew I had been dismissed. Her cell phone was ringing, in any case. So off I ambled towards heavy drawn curtains, dark, velvety. A sporty-looking gentleman with wine glass in hand strode out and nearly ran me over, before dim-light recognition got the better of both of us.
“Hey, thanks for coming, pre.” The salutation came from man-about-town Eric Tagle, co-celebrator for the evening. His birthday came two days earlier, on Nov. 19. But Tony must have wanted to share the bill for the night and suggested co-hosting it.
Happy belated burpday, I said to Eric as we shook free hands. My left was holding a wine bottle for Tony. I hadn’t known about Eric’s 32nd, as he corrected me when I ventured 45th, until a late SMS had alerted me just as I was about to be dropped off on Yakal by my uniformed chauffeur (tangerine tank top, a hand-me-down from his bossing).
Can someone make a beeline when one’s solo? If he can, well then, I made a beeline towards AOC once I got past the curtains and burly guards. Popular club tenor Arthur Manuntag was singing to one side of the large, uh, warehouse, rehabbed and converted, of course, to look like a typical techno house, high-ceilinged, freezing and all.
Tony was with some gentlemen around a tall cocktail table. I felicitated him on his 56th, and handed him the elderberry wine labeled Carolina, a new product from the Mountain Province. I had picked it up from the Cordillera Coffee shop off Xavierville in QC. Who knows? Tony might have had a Carolina or Caroline as a squeeze sometime in his bachelorhood, while he was still in the process of acquiring a summa cum laude from Ateneo.
Yes, maybe he did, as his eyes lit up in appreciation upon perusing the rather tackily designed bottle label. Heard you have your voice back, I said, and will be singing with abandon tonight.
“Yeah,” he shot back, grinning. “Sure I’ll sing. Loud, man, loud.”
For over a year, in conversations he had sounded like Marlon Brando playing Darth Vader with a bad cold, so hoarse owing to a throat complication that one had to empathize with every whispered syllable. To his credit, he assured all listeners that he wasn’t having a difficult time articulating, just that it sounded that way.
“All you guys are the ones having a tough time straining your ears to hear me,” he once acknowledged. Successive operations in San Fran couldn’t get him his voice back, until he found another throat specialist in Boston who tried a different tack. And presto, Tony could sing My Way again, while burly guards protected him.
At a nearby table were John Silva and Jonathan Best, with a foxy-looking lady. I asked John if Piolo and Sam were expected that night. He guffawed, while I conceded that he had raised valid points about having to stand up for one’s orientation in a recent e-posted love letter.
Then a waiter who might have erroneously recognized me as an RTC judge sidled up and asked what my pleasure was. “Scotch, sir? We have Macallan 18.” Hmm. We must have crossed primrose paths in a previous lifetime, and he owed me one. Make that a double, neat, I said. “Water on the side, sir?”
Do we know one another? “I used to serve at Quisine, sir.” Oh. Yes. You own me. And we own the night. That last I said to myself as I happily slid into the back part designated as smoking area. Best place to wait up for our cigar-chomping podner, the fabled Mr. Q for Quisine, revisiting again from Vancouver.
The single malt came, along with all the good, tony memories of dimly lit places with strong aircon, live music, strobe lights dancing on the walls and ceilings. Warehouse had been up since January, a friendly lady server said as she deposited plates of lechon Cebu (sans Sarsa ni Mang Tomas) and fish fillets. The platter with yet unshelled ulang I had to decline, having only two hands to handle a malt glass, a lighted cigarette, and a cell phone that kept buzzing.
In any case, it felt good to sit there alone to nurse my drink... No, wait, wrong verb to apply to my caregiver. Anyway, since Studio 54 rocked all and sundry in the Big Apple a century ago, such plush nightspots as Warehouse, for drinking and dancing, seeing and being seen, in brief making alta sociedad so-si, have gone through repeated cycles.
These days the trick is to set up a humongous place, preferably with multiple levels, install a state-of-the-art sound system, hire spinmeisters local and foreign, and play loud music with a danceable beat, thus offer a chance to get into a mosh-pit sort of trance. Oh, and charge an arm and a leg for entry alone, which sometimes covers a minimum of one drink. When groups settle on settee settings, the bill comes up to five digits, easy.
At Warehouse there’s a second level with private, cozy sofa settings, from where one can look down with snobbish vantage at the mosh pit below.
At Alchemy, also opened this year, on Julia Vargas Ave. off C-5, three floors provide separate bars, LCD video screens, mesmerizing light patterns, and variable music, techno to trance to grunge to whatevah.
How do I know? Why, I’ve been invited there. Just cuz I take advantage of a senior citizen’s discount card doesn’t mean my leisure time should just be spent with fellow Bedans sharing decadent chocolate cake in some cafe, right?
Neoteny’s the word. Look it up. It’s the techie term for Bob Dylan’s anthemic theme when he sang “May you staaaay... forevaaah... whatevaaah...”
In fact I should be familiar with Alchemy, since it’s a neighbor, especially after it got us homeowners’ board directors of a gated village rather worried that on weekend nights, long lines of cars would park on both sides of Julia Vargas, just cuz all the smart young kids wanted to get into Alchemy. For 500 a pop, minimum. But they have to be screened at the door. For proper attire, accent, the works.
VIPs like me just saunter through to the envy of the queue crowd waiting to get in. And it’s not cuz our homeowners’ board filed an injunction against parked cars that blocked our Gate 2 and won a compromise arrangement, no sir.
I was invited to check it out as a possible poetry reading venue in time for Halloween. Trust the young to come up with strange ideas, especially when they turn into foot-stomping vampires on weekends.
The invite was for the First of September, after the Palanca Awards Night, from where the poet Marne Kilates came away with a cool check for 100K. That’s right, and he didn’t win it for anything literary either, but just by being there. It seems that Sylvia Palanca started having fun with some Japanese guests who spontaneously offered to raffle away sizable cash prizes for literary winners and judges both.
And the honored guest speaker for the night, debonair Sen. Mar Roxas, got into the act, into the spirit of largesse as it were, his own surely buoyed by his effervescent date, and wound up shelling out yet another 100K check. Names of the winners and judges present were drawn from a fishbowl or something. Darn. It had to be the first time I failed to attend Palanca Night in over 50 years. So it was Marne, our chair in the Poetry in English judges’ panel, whose attendance spelled quick fortune.
When co-judge Jimmy Abad, who was there and texted me about Marne’s sense of serendipity, I thought it was a joke, just to make me feel bad for standing them up. In truth, I had decided to forego a presidentiable’s company for the Palanca dinner, just so I could polish my dancing shoes for the anticipated night at Alchemy.
In any case, an ebullient Marne came to meet me outside Alchemy’s door to-die-for, and we were escorted inside by our slinky lady host, who made pasintabi through the phalanx of burly guards and introed us to whoevah mattered, including the young owner, a personable lad who appeared to be related to the many Punos in and out of government.
We had the run of the premises, from the ground floor mini-bar where we were expected to stage a reading sometime, to the upper floors with their concatenation of TGIF elements. And we too were entranced.
I know the orig hotspot of this entertainment genre is Embassy at The Fort, but the only time I got an invite, from actor and chicken inasal magnate Joel Torre, I couldn’t make it. That was a couple of weeks ago, to join a cast party for Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters the play. But since my fellow STAR columnist and fellow eventologist Tim Yap has deigned to ignore my partying predilection to date, I thought, well, maybe it’s all that yellow dye, so I’ll wait till he washes it off. Meanwhile, thanks but no thanks, Joel; I’d rather hear a come-on-in from the main man himself.
Back to Warehouse, indeed Tony Boy sang... his heart and guts out. But not before Arthur had called on Gretchen to render a deliquescent front act. Maan Hontiveros, too, entertained the crowd, as did ’60s rocker Johnny Velasquez.
Eventually joining me at the low table were buddies Bubot Quicho, who’s opening a new dining place soon, with a notable French chef; Atty. Mike Toledo, who was just back from Rome and said he had some holy water for me; and Noel Oñate, head honcho of the much-awarded Asian Spirit airline. Of course we all talked politics. And laughed and wept our hearts and guts out.
At some point a lanky fellow came over to offer a handshake. Wow, it’s Richard Gomez, who’s never forgotten that I scripted an early film for Peque Gallaga that starred him. Why, he even brought me over to his date nonpareil, fellow STAR columnist Lucy Torres Gomez, who recalled that we had a fun lunch one time at Italianni’s, courtesy of Signora Millet.
When I got back to my comfort zone, who would be there on the seat beside mine but Rep. Chiz Escudero, whom I met for the first time. I was also introed to Rep. Darlene Antonino Custodio, and all I could stammer was that I had just been to GenSan but failed to photo-op Manny Pacquiao’s mansion. And she could only smile back.
During a lull in the six-way conversation around the table, I took the opportunity to go sotto voce with Rep. Chiz, congratulating him for the latest presidentiables’ survey that saw him streaking up to a strong third at 17 percent, right behind Sen. LL’s 23 percent and Veep Noli Boy’s 21 percent.
“Thanks, thanks,” the articulate young man said.
But you know what? I pressed on. I’ve had much of Macallan, so I’ll tell you now what I’ve told others, that you’re so darned fluent in both languages, and so ready with your answers, that often you sound robotic or as glib and slick as a snake-oil salesman, so maybe you should consider learning to stammer and stutter, or at least feigning those once in a while.
He smiled and nodded. “Duly noted,” the congressman said into his drink.
And that’s what happens when senior citizens attend techno-house events: we play at being consiglieris. Nothing to lose, right? Who knows? If he does become president, he just might throw a party at Warehouse or Alchemy or Embassy and the like. And he might remember to invite the fellow who once told him to learn to stutter and stammer. Anything goes in the techno world, right?