UP Bliss

Two nights ago, at around past 10, as I traced the dimly-lit roofed alley that connects Citimall to the rented apartment where I stay in UP Bliss, I passed by a shanty where a band of obviously drunk revelers were crowding around a small table gulping Red Horse in front of a videoke screen. One of their companions, a young lady, was holding the microphone, swaying her hips to the beat of her off-keyed braying, nay, singing... la isla bonita... while her companions listened approvingly. When her performance ended, rapturous claps and boisterous shouts thundered across UP Bliss.

Walking past the group, I chuckled at the thought that the same scenario would be replicated all over the country on that instant- from exclusive videoke bars along Quezon Avenue where the rich but balding and aging Samsons, surrounded by scantily-clad vixens, were reliving the era of pre-sex-bomb-sex-bomb Tom Jones singing lamentations... why why why Delilah... to squalid holes in the walls, not much unlike the one I just passed by, where the rest of the lumpen crowd were thumping their feet to the beat of post-why-why-why-Delilah Tom Jones'... sex bomb, sex bomb, you're my sex bomb.

The ubiquitous presence of videokes in our country, aside from our habit of electing undesirables to public offices, attests to our capacity to endure pain sans limite, almost to the point of being sado-masochists. Sitting captive in some dark corners in videoke bars listening to friends and other people holler is almost the same as performing self mutilation on eardrums, without the benefit of anesthesia.

Revenge was probably the primary reason why the Japanese invented the videoke and its predecessor, the karaoke. It's their way of getting even with the world for the humiliation they suffered during World War II. With videokes, the Japanese made it sure that unsuspecting individuals sitting comfortably in videoke bars would be tortured petit à petit by, of all people, their trusted friends.

Some humorless people, unfortunately, could only take auditory torture that much.

Recently, I came across a news report about this unfortunate crooner who got hurt in a melee after he sang Frank Sinatra's My Way in a videoke bar in Cebu. Apparently, one of his fellow videoke bar singers had enough of his singing prowess. Without saying anything, the bad guy grabbed the microphone from the Frank Sinatra-wannabe. A free-for-all fight ensued. When the dusts had settled, the poor singer was lying face down- drenched in his own blood. He was stabbed. Fortunately for our singing hero, he survived.

My Way has gained some sort of notoriety due to fights and riots it triggers off, the news report went on. The rising key changes and high notes of this song often caused singers to go out of tune, sometimes eliciting laughters and jeers from listeners, and in turn sparkling reprisals. Also, a My Way afficionado whose lingua franca is the thickly-accented Cebuano sometimes becomes the butt of jokes in videoke bars everytime he belts out this song. This would set off altercations, eventually leading to a free-for-all lynching. If you're wondering why such a seemingly harmless song could provoke a fight, ask your friendly Cebuano colleague sitting nearest you.

As I opened the front gate in our unit, I wondered if, before the night would end, My Way would claim another life.