A Work in Progress (Part One)

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I met up with my college friends at California Pizza Kitchen QC area to celebrate bismuth's 25th birthday. It was a party of 5 out of the usual 9. We had delicious pasta and pizza together with hearty conversations about life. Same old, same old, the kind of gathering that would make one feel at home. We transferred to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf right beside it to continue the merriment. It was very breezy last night so those without sweaters definitely regret not having second skin. For the most part, on the 2nd floor open air deck, we discussed about work, working out, depression, relationships, and when Mussolini went home early, this indie documentary entitled Riles (Railroad Tracks). The Bankero gave a very poignant description about this family who lived beside the railroad tracks who were threatened of eviction. He gave me and Bismuth an interestingly detailed imagery of how the wife was such a thinker who worried about her family's future, how the husband was a balut vendor who was a drunkard, how they had 2 children who'd play along the tracks seemingly inured to the dangers of getting hit by the train. He had described how the family's love for karaoke would come as the background music and how the lyrics were very apt in the their travails as survivors in a harshly depressed country that never runs out of economic crises. He described how in the final part, the family was evicted and that while they were frantically picking up the lot of their material possessions, there were men already dismantling their cardboard house; this happening with a brief segue of the dilapidated train momentarily crossing the riles, the only thing you see on camera for a few seconds. After its passing, we see the poor family again and the striking reality beyond the distraction. He said, "what most people see is the train, but we play blind to the poverty that surrounds us." Very powerful indeed. Something to stir up the bourgeoisie senses.

When everyone else left, I had to ask for directions on where to find Brannigan's. It seems no one knows where it is. I walked and waited for more than an hour until my Marshe friends from my former company came to rescue my rotting corpse in front of what I realized was a pick up place for prostitutes. We found Brannigan's. It was old and resembled a beach resort. The monoblock chairs and tables were ashen blue instead of white, the toilets didn't have locks, it was poorly lit, the service was bad, they didn't have any other drinks except SMB Light and Pale Pilsen, their 5-shot tequila promo came with 5 regular glasses instead of shot glasses (which we found excruciatingly hilarious), their fried chicken was bland, and the worst part of it all, their hot sauce bottle was a formaldehyde pool of decaying ants and baby cockroaches. It was terrible. Just terrible. And to top it all off, the wind was still chilly.

There was one time when my older sister's boyfriend went to pee in the toilet. He came back and told us how this woman suddenly walked in on him midstream and saw his birdy. I found it abso-fucking-lutely hysterical! Hahahahaha

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