Of Sam, Beers, Underarms and Tapsi

Went to the east side of town last Saturday and in the afternoon found myself in familiar company, holding an ice cold beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. Subas and Noel were there, along with Mr. Golti. We had just gotten ourselves seated when a screech and thud caught our attention. A traffic accident had just happened along C5 road, and being truly Filipino, made it our patriotic duty to investigate the situation. There was a big blue dump truck, a Honda, and further along the road a Toyota van on its side. Traffic crawled to a snail's pace, everyone wanted a peek at the incident.

As usual, everyone instantly became an analyst and commentator to the event. Men casually walked to and from the wreck, trying to look as casual and uninterested as possible and failing miserable on both counts. Then a familiar name resonated from the crowd, Sam Milby was in the van, allegedly.

It took a while before the man in the van finally crawled out of the vehicle, someone remarked that he looked unscathed despite what happened to his tin can on wheels. Yep, it was the actor himself. Hmm, maybe it was staged, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he had make-up on and someone would suddenly shout "Cut!" from out of nowhere. We were all humored, this was the man whose pansy smile beamed ten foot high on billboards and somehow made teenage girls giggle by simply talking nonsense in his much-maligned Filipino. A far cry from our mutual man-crush, Brad Pitt, no doubt.

We went back to our beers and made more wisecracks at Sam's expense. We had just come from Subas' house in Marikina which was engulfed in knee deep flood waters just the weekend prior. We initially came to help out in cleaning, but then ended up helping ourselves to cracked-pepper crusted liempo. Made a mental note to myself to try it out at home while I took the last bite-sized portion. (How un-Filipino, I know!)

Over the course of the evening at the bar, we were watching the VMA's on television, anticipating Kanye West's rude intrusion into Ms. Taylor Swift's acceptance speech. The incident occurred, and we all echoed Barack Obama's sentiments. What a jackass, indeed.

Now, the lovely Ms. Swift wasn't done for the evening yet, and somehow managed to muster enough courage to perform a single of her's. She was cute... and we all sat there staring at her smooth and silky underarm as she waved to everyone on the subway. Yum!

And speaking of underarms, I can't help but flashback on an incident at Handlebars... Noel and I were watching this little known band perform, we can't remember any of the songs on their set, but damn, the petite lady on vocals was just mesmerizing. And yes, her underarm was just so... damn! We cheered her on each time she hit a high note, her hand clenched into a fist in the air, revealing her snow white underarm for all of us to gaze into. Whew!

Yes, ladies, there is little a man can do to resist the allure of great underarms on a woman. I can't put a finger on why this is so, but trust me, all that shaving, moisturizing, waxing (and of course, deodorizing) is well worth it. If one were to place two equally stunning Brazilian models side by side, one wearing a short skirt and a t-shirt and the other unflattering pants but a tank top, waving her hands in the air revealing flawless underarms, my bet is that men would notice the underarms first.

Back to Saturday on the east side, we had the whole bar to ourselves. There was no one else around, people had sensibly taken shelter in their own homes amid the brewing storm approaching. But we, well, we thought we were invincible and continued our little drinking spree. Hmm, it wasn't exactly a drinking spree, I guess. We were pretty mindful not to get drunk. We weren't kids anymore, and I recall the most any of us drank was maybe 6 beers.

We called it a night and adjourned early that evening, we were tired and wanted a good night's rest. I decided to go south this time to bring Mr. Golti home to Paranaque. As fate would have it, we found ourselves in Dongalo, home of the infamous DB Tapsi. Noel and I were curious to finally have an authentic Dongalo tapsi, and we stopped at Marty's, supposedly the original and the best that the neighborhood had to offer. Yep, the reputation was well earned.

I'm curious though, how this stretch of road in particular could be the home of so many tapsilog joints. How the heck did they manage to make a profit when there was a tapsilog joint everywhere? Never mind... I would gladly come back to sample more of their tapa upon the slightest urging.