Our nipa hut with the requisite videoke machine
During the years we used to come here, I became somewhat of a celebrity on our beach for reasons both good and, shall we say, not so good. My pasty white skin makes me stick out like a sore thumb here and I draw stares everywhere I go. In fact, yesterday as we were leaving the Nepo Mall, Xavier said to me “Daddy, it’s really funny to walk behind you and see the looks on people’s faces when you walk by. They literally stop and stare at you, it’s hilarious.” I’ve dealt with it as long as we’ve been coming here and it doesn’t bother me, I’m actually a bit entertained by it. Being a white American with gray hair and blue eyes makes me sort of a novelty around here and people love it when I say hi or stop to talk to them for some reason. I’m a guy who likes to have a good time, particularly when I’m on vacation and it’s not uncommon for me to just plop down with a group of locals with a beer and start chatting. They always love it and enjoy asking me questions about where I’m from and when I say the US, they love to tell me about their friends or relatives who live in the US. It may sound kind of strange to some but it’s a whole better than sitting in the nipa hut doing nothing.
The kids are not really enjoying themselves so far, they like the beach house but there’s not much for them to do here so they get bored easily. Virginia and Lola had to go into town this morning and the kids all begged to go which left me here with Virginia’s brother Bobby and some of the nieces and nephews who stay here most of the time. None of them speak much English so there’s not much conversation to be had and so I decided to go down to the Lazy A and see if they still had the open air café with Wi-fi. I wanted to walk and see the beach but Bobby insisted on taking me in the tricycle so I relented, thinking I could just do it on the way back. I am happy to say that the Lazy A is still going strong, the café with Wi-fi is still there and the two women who worked there years before are still there. One of them, Gie-Gie, saw me and got a big smile on her face as she remembered me instantly. She asked how many years I’ve been away and I said nine and asked her if she still makes the amazing club sandwich (she does). We caught up for a minute, I sat down to use the Wi-fi and I ordered a San Miguel Light without even thinking about what time it was. When I turned on my computer I saw it was only 1040 in the morning but I figured what the hell, I’m on vacation. I ended up staying for a couple San Migs and then it was time to walk back and see what has become of my beloved beach since I’ve been away. The biggest difference is that the Ocean Breeze is long gone. In all my trips here, the Ocean Breeze and the Lazy A were the two things I could always count on. The Ocean Breeze was a large square shaped open air bar right on the beach about 3 minutes walk down from us. It was the main hangout for ex-pats who lived on, or frequented, our beach and it was where I usually spent most of my time while here. The owner died about 10 years ago and his wife sold it and it’s now completely gone. Someone bought the entire lot, tore down the bar and it’s now just another one of the endless cookie-cutter ‘resorts’ renting out nipa huts with karaoke machines. Sad, really, the Ocean Breeze was always my favorite place here on the beach (I’m going to write an entire chapter dedicated to the Ocean Breeze here in the near future so look out for it).
As I continued my walk along the beachfront, I received the usual “Hello sair!” greetings from the locals who were surprised to see this white dude walking around as well as the usual small handful of girls and women waving and catcalling me. Sadly, there were no baklas around today because they are usually the most fun. Bakla is the Filipino word for gay but it mostly is used for the gays here who are very feminine acting and extremely flamboyant to the point where there is no question that they are baklas. I always attract a lot of them here and I enjoy joking around with them as I have no prejudice against gay people. I remember one trip, probably 2011 or 2012, there was a bakla day at the beach here, they arrived in vast numbers, brought in by buses and almost completely took over the entire beach. As I made my daily walk down to the Lazy A and back, my god, I felt like a piece of meat. I was constantly catcalled and yelled at – “HI SEKSI! OOOO SO SEKSI!” and later in the day when I’d had a few too many beers in me, I started blowing them kisses, licking my index finger suggestively and then touching my ass whenever they catcalled me and they would go absolutely bonkers, it was just so funny. Hey, “It’s more fun in the Philippines!”…
I ended up back at the Lazy A in the evening to get my long awaited club sandwich which did not disappoint and it turned out there was a sort of band playing. I say sort of because it was basically just a guy and girl with a keyboard and a laptop that they could look up karaoke songs on but they were fun and entertaining and nothing like the Lazy A had ever had before. I have to say, they have really done a great job of expanding and seem to be the biggest thing going on the beach these days. They noticed the white guy sitting at the table right away and instantly started grilling me for information – what was my name, where was I from, how long am I here, etc. After a few songs they asked me to come up and sing and of course I was only too happy to oblige.
Now let’s take a minute to talk about karaoke here in the Philippines.
I am not exaggerating even a little tiny bit to say that it is practically a religion here, anybody who has been here will back me up on that. Filipinos by nature are born entertainers, they love to sing more than anything. In fact, if you have traveled around various cities in Asia and went to a bar where there was a live band, the odds are pretty good that the band were all Filipinos. I remember being in the Hard Rock Cafe in Bangkok many years ago and the band was all Filipinos. When we lived in Korea, the club on base had a live band that would play every weekend. You guessed it…Filipinos. On all the beaches, the popular thing is for Filipinos to rent a nipa hut (commonly called a shed) that has a karaoke machine – except here they call it ‘videoke’. They will swim, eat food and sing karaoke literally all day. We of course have a karaoke machine in our nipa hut that Lola sometimes rents out and I am not ashamed to say that when we are here on vacation, I wear that sonofabitch out. It’s not normally something I would do back home but here in the Philippines, the locals see me as some kind of karaoke god simply because English is my native language so they are under the mistaken impression that I must be able to sing any song in English, regardless of the vocal range. Personally I don’t really care because it’s my nipa hut and my karaoke machine so I’ll sit and sing all day if I want. Honestly, I have a terrible singing voice so what I try to do is find songs that are mostly in my voice range, limited as it is, and I stick to those and then if I’m by myself, I’ll have fun and experiment with other songs that I like. Here’s a small sampling of the songs that I've discovered I can actually do without sounding horrible:
Achy Breaky Heart
Save the Last Dance
You May Be Right
Piano Man
Hotel California
American Pie
Every Breath You Take
Country Roads (Take me Home)
Don’t You Want Me
Mack The Knife
Mandy
Copacabana
There are more to be sure but those are sort of my go-to’s. The classics like Piano Man, Save The Last Dance and especially Country Roads drive the locals crazy.
So fast forward to Saturday, the beach was pretty packed; weekends are busy here as the day trippers descend upon the beach in droves to rent the sheds, swim and sing karaoke. I love days like this and I especially love walking up and down the beach on these days because the sheds are overflowing and normally the mere sight of me drives the Filipinos crazy and they beg me to come in and have some food and drinks and sing some songs with them. I am happy to do it of course because, well, I like to make people happy. I’m a giver, what can I say? On this day, I was kind of bored not much going on at the Copacabana shed. I was doing some karaoke but there was nobody else who wanted to do it and so I was by myself which was just not happening for me. And so I decided to rediscover one of my favorite old pastimes from my previous years here; I call it ‘going walkabout’. When the beach is overflowing with day trippers on the weekend, I’ve found that if I just start walking, invariably I am besieged by requests from the aforementioned day trippers to join them. More often than not, they have been drinking and just want to have a good time and having a white American guy in the party just adds to that I guess. I went walkabout and sure enough I hit a handful of parties up and down the beach, singing songs and having a good time. I hit one party up as I neared the Copacabana Shed and there was a Filipino guy singing who just had the most incredible voice I’ve ever heard here. I popped in when he was done his song we started chatting and we hit it off immediately. He had a tattoo of the “Philippine Eagles” which I had seen a few places before but didn’t know what it was so I asked him and it turns out it is sort of brotherhood of Filipinos who were in the Army or the military in general. He asked me if I ever served, I said yeah, ran down my Army service for him (reserves, active duty and civilian), he raised glass and said “My friend, you are in the brotherhood!” and I answered him with a loud “HOOAH!”. It was a fantastic moment, one I will never forget. He asked me to sing so I did “You May Be Right” and I told him to come by our place later for some drinks and more singing. I bade him farewell and headed home and found Virginia outside hanging clothes. I told her of my adventures and she said “Yeah, I was out hanging clothes and all of a sudden I thought I heard you singing and was thinking ‘is that Rik?’! Yup, it was.” We had a good laugh about it. I took Xavier and Max to have dinner at the Lazy A because they now have buffalo wings, Xavier’s favorite but unfortunately, they are not buffalo wings. They are wings drowned in some kind of red sticky sauce that is not in the least bit spicy or buffalo in any way and covered in sesame seeds. The band was there again so we listened to the music and of course I got up to sing another song (ok, two) and then retired for the night. Tomorrow would be Sunday and I figured it would be quiet and a good chance to rest and relax.
I could NOT have been more wrong...
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