July 29, 2008 EARTHQUAKE
It was indeed a strong shaker that hit Southern California shortly before noon today.
I was on the topmost floor of the 9-story tower of the Loma Linda University, waiting for Ampy to be discharged after an overnight hospital stay for a routine physical exam.
Suddenly the building started swaying while I was walking towards the Nurses' Station. There was this overweight blonde nurse right next to me who got excited and said: "Earthquake!.. I need to hug somebody!" I thought shewas kidding, but went ahead and put her arms around my neck, almost wrestling me to the floor. The swaying lasted for about 12 seconds. She then let go and asked: "Are you OK?" I said yes, but actually I got a little scared, not only of the quake but the fear of a heavy body landing on top of me.
I then ran to Ampy's hospital room where I found her squatting on the floor with her arms draped over her head. She said she was worried the heavy Zenith hospital TV would fall from the ceiling.
I checked the California Integrated Seismic Network website when we got home.It was a 5.4 magnitude at 11:42:15 AM with the epicenter in Chino, in San Bernardino County. It's about 30 miles from my location.
Well folks, that's life in California. Something we have to live with. An earthquake can hit anytime without warning. We'll just have to be aware and be prepared.
And avoid standing next to an overweight blonde nurse.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Ako si Antonio, dating taga Chicago
Nagsawa sa lamig at sapin-saping snow
Lumipat sa Fresno, dala ng pagkakataon
Yun pala naman ay sobra ang init doon.
"Lipat tayo sa LA..." ang sabi ko kay Ampy
Mahusay na trabaho, nasa malaking city kasi
Marami doong makikita at mapapasyalan
Magagandang tanawin, panahon ay ayos lang.
Pero...
Talaga palang Wild Wild West dito sa LA
Drive-by shooting at car chases sa freeway
Madalas na mapanood ang mga ito sa TV
Hindi movies ito, kundi tunay na nangyayari.
Narito ang Disneyland, Universal Studios at Hollywood
At iba pang mapupuntahan hanggang abutin ng pagod
Dito'y marami ding nagbabakasaling maging artista
Kasabihan nga hindi ba, kahit ipakain sa buwaya.
Sobra naman ang presyo ng real estate dito
Paano ka namang makakabili, kung maliit ang sweldo?
Baka naman nagdidildil ang iba... ng hot dog at hamburger
Para lang makabili ng bahay sa Rancho Cucamonger.
Pero...
Ayos lang dito sa Southern California
Maraming kababayan, lalo na sa West Covina
Mga tindahan ng bangus, bagoong at pandesal
Para kang nasa Pilipinas, may estatwa pa ni Rizal.
At saka...aba, teka, tila yata nahihilo ako
Bakit gumagalaw itong computer table ko?
Yumayanig itong building... naku po earthquake ito!
Diyan na muna kayo, kailangan akong tumakbo!
Ako si Antonio, dating taga Chicago
Nagsawa sa lamig at sapin-saping snow
Lumipat sa Fresno, dala ng pagkakataon
Yun pala naman ay sobra ang init doon.
"Lipat tayo sa LA..." ang sabi ko kay Ampy
Mahusay na trabaho, nasa malaking city kasi
Marami doong makikita at mapapasyalan
Magagandang tanawin, panahon ay ayos lang.
Pero...
Talaga palang Wild Wild West dito sa LA
Drive-by shooting at car chases sa freeway
Madalas na mapanood ang mga ito sa TV
Hindi movies ito, kundi tunay na nangyayari.
Narito ang Disneyland, Universal Studios at Hollywood
At iba pang mapupuntahan hanggang abutin ng pagod
Dito'y marami ding nagbabakasaling maging artista
Kasabihan nga hindi ba, kahit ipakain sa buwaya.
Sobra naman ang presyo ng real estate dito
Paano ka namang makakabili, kung maliit ang sweldo?
Baka naman nagdidildil ang iba... ng hot dog at hamburger
Para lang makabili ng bahay sa Rancho Cucamonger.
Pero...
Ayos lang dito sa Southern California
Maraming kababayan, lalo na sa West Covina
Mga tindahan ng bangus, bagoong at pandesal
Para kang nasa Pilipinas, may estatwa pa ni Rizal.
At saka...aba, teka, tila yata nahihilo ako
Bakit gumagalaw itong computer table ko?
Yumayanig itong building... naku po earthquake ito!
Diyan na muna kayo, kailangan akong tumakbo!
Monday, July 7, 2008
RHYMES, REASONS and RECOLLECTIONS
The Musical Side of Kamuning
(Updated 07/07/08, previously published using the by-line Harry K. Santos)
Let's start with the town's distinctive name. Kamuning was named after a tree also known as Walis-walisan. I'm glad they picked the name Kamuning over Walis-walisan. Kamuning sounds more musical. Much more musical sounding than other Quezon City district names like say, Cubao or Galas. Cubao rhymes with lubluban ng kalabaw. Who knows, maybe that's what it was in the old days. Maybe that's where the name comes from. You never know.
Galas sounds rough, provincial, rhymes with "No Class" and "nagalas", the Ilocano word for ugly. La Loma is something else. The place is synonymous with the cemetery, isn't it? Strangely enough, La Loma rhymes with Colma, the California cemetery town near San Francisco.
Speaking of which, the next Quezon City district on our mental list is San Francisco. Del Monte, that is. I'm not sure how the town got its name, but I don't think it was named after that famous city in Northern California, simply because the place doesn't look like that at all. Not even close. And I doubt it very much if Tony Bennett would ever consider leaving his heart, or any other bodily part of his, in San Francisco Del Monte.
Quirino District is... just that, a plain, characterless town with boring subdivision names Project 2, 3 and 4. Roxas District is an earlier version of Quirino. Project 1, according to Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation records.
Anyway...
A good number of musical artists hail from or have lived in Kamuning at one time or another. Quite a few of them became big time performers. Big enough to be well known in show business, or at least among friends, classmates and townfolks of Kamuning.
Joey "Pepe" Smith, front man for the Juan de la Cruz Band, became a rock star in the 1970s. A nephew of mine, obviously a fan, says Smith is considered a legend among rock music fans in Asia. Known as plain Joseph as a kid, son of an American GI Smith grew up on K-3rd Street and still lives there, again according to my nephew.
There was a group of kids in the mid-60's who spent a great deal of their time singing Beatles songs at street corners of Kamuning. It didn't take long before they started playing their own musical instruments and sounding more and more like their idols from Liverpool. They were known as Dynasonics, later became Dynasouls when they changed managers and really made it big as concert and recording artists. Drummer Walter Pennington, another American mestizo, was "more cute than Ringo Starr", die-hard girl fans insisted during the group's heyday.
Vic Valdez was an Elvis-wannabe in high school. A big fan of the King, he signed classmates' autographs as "Elvic". He did not make it in the Elvis Presley of the Philippines contest, but settled to become a finalist in the search for a Filipino Neil Sedaka conducted by the then popular Student Canteen Radio/TV noon-day show. The semi-kinky haired Vic, who took third place in the contest, "looked more like Sammy Davis, Jr." said show host Leila Benitez.
Freddie Alde, who technically was not from Kamuning (OK, he's from Roxas District) but went to QCHS and was once trained by our high school music teacher Mr. Asprec, also became a Student Canteen pseudo-Elvis teenage idol during the show's popular run.
Elvis must have been the most influential figure to many QCHS musical aspirants during our time. Caridad Santos did one of the greatest and most unique impersonations we have seen in high school. "Karing" passed away last year.
We never saw Virginia Galla sing or perform on stage, but she was also known as a female Elvis at the time.
Then there's the Penaranda Family of talented musicians and singers. Gloria Penaranda who is a member of my QCHS class (1958) performed professionally at ManilaGrand Opera House and was known to have coached Pilita Corrales in guitar techniques. Gloria now livesin the Seattle area.
Other notables who made it into the musical limelight were Nonoy Zuniga who was and still is, a well-known recording artist and Vida Revilla who sang regularly on the Tinno Lapuz show on radio DZBB and TV Channel 7 in the '60s. Not too long ago, in one canned TV show from Manila we watched, Boboy Garovillo of the relatively newer singing trio Apo Hiking Society ad-libbed "doon sa amin sa K-3rd" during a skit.
There were other countless musically inclined people from our town, not only those Hollywood copycats, but also those who were formally trained in classical music and in the more traditional musical instruments like piano and violin. Special mention also goes to those who chose to maintain and preserve the true-Filipino traditional kundiman. Among them were high school performers Jose Balce and Clemencio Mergal. Rolando Landicho, another kundiman enthusiast, still sings regularly on the radio.
Estela Salvosa-Villanueva, until recently a resident of Toronto, sang, wrote, arranged and produced religious music recordings. Estela passed away recently.
Romeo Luz, now a Chicago resident, earned the moniker "Cugat" as a popular Kamuning neighborhood piano player and occasional night club performer. Danilo Jarquio and Tony Victoria, both US residents now, were among the many talented back-up and session musicians of our town.
The name Kamuning rhymes with the Sinatra song "Ring-a-ding-ding". The place may not be Ol' Blue Eyes' kind of town, but at the very least, it's a town with a cool sounding name. The place is a far cry from the grandeur of Nashville or Motown, but Kamuning, inspite of its diminutive image, has its own rich musical history.
The Musical Side of Kamuning
(Updated 07/07/08, previously published using the by-line Harry K. Santos)
Let's start with the town's distinctive name. Kamuning was named after a tree also known as Walis-walisan. I'm glad they picked the name Kamuning over Walis-walisan. Kamuning sounds more musical. Much more musical sounding than other Quezon City district names like say, Cubao or Galas. Cubao rhymes with lubluban ng kalabaw. Who knows, maybe that's what it was in the old days. Maybe that's where the name comes from. You never know.
Galas sounds rough, provincial, rhymes with "No Class" and "nagalas", the Ilocano word for ugly. La Loma is something else. The place is synonymous with the cemetery, isn't it? Strangely enough, La Loma rhymes with Colma, the California cemetery town near San Francisco.
Speaking of which, the next Quezon City district on our mental list is San Francisco. Del Monte, that is. I'm not sure how the town got its name, but I don't think it was named after that famous city in Northern California, simply because the place doesn't look like that at all. Not even close. And I doubt it very much if Tony Bennett would ever consider leaving his heart, or any other bodily part of his, in San Francisco Del Monte.
Quirino District is... just that, a plain, characterless town with boring subdivision names Project 2, 3 and 4. Roxas District is an earlier version of Quirino. Project 1, according to Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation records.
Anyway...
A good number of musical artists hail from or have lived in Kamuning at one time or another. Quite a few of them became big time performers. Big enough to be well known in show business, or at least among friends, classmates and townfolks of Kamuning.
Joey "Pepe" Smith, front man for the Juan de la Cruz Band, became a rock star in the 1970s. A nephew of mine, obviously a fan, says Smith is considered a legend among rock music fans in Asia. Known as plain Joseph as a kid, son of an American GI Smith grew up on K-3rd Street and still lives there, again according to my nephew.
There was a group of kids in the mid-60's who spent a great deal of their time singing Beatles songs at street corners of Kamuning. It didn't take long before they started playing their own musical instruments and sounding more and more like their idols from Liverpool. They were known as Dynasonics, later became Dynasouls when they changed managers and really made it big as concert and recording artists. Drummer Walter Pennington, another American mestizo, was "more cute than Ringo Starr", die-hard girl fans insisted during the group's heyday.
Vic Valdez was an Elvis-wannabe in high school. A big fan of the King, he signed classmates' autographs as "Elvic". He did not make it in the Elvis Presley of the Philippines contest, but settled to become a finalist in the search for a Filipino Neil Sedaka conducted by the then popular Student Canteen Radio/TV noon-day show. The semi-kinky haired Vic, who took third place in the contest, "looked more like Sammy Davis, Jr." said show host Leila Benitez.
Freddie Alde, who technically was not from Kamuning (OK, he's from Roxas District) but went to QCHS and was once trained by our high school music teacher Mr. Asprec, also became a Student Canteen pseudo-Elvis teenage idol during the show's popular run.
Elvis must have been the most influential figure to many QCHS musical aspirants during our time. Caridad Santos did one of the greatest and most unique impersonations we have seen in high school. "Karing" passed away last year.
We never saw Virginia Galla sing or perform on stage, but she was also known as a female Elvis at the time.
Then there's the Penaranda Family of talented musicians and singers. Gloria Penaranda who is a member of my QCHS class (1958) performed professionally at ManilaGrand Opera House and was known to have coached Pilita Corrales in guitar techniques. Gloria now livesin the Seattle area.
Other notables who made it into the musical limelight were Nonoy Zuniga who was and still is, a well-known recording artist and Vida Revilla who sang regularly on the Tinno Lapuz show on radio DZBB and TV Channel 7 in the '60s. Not too long ago, in one canned TV show from Manila we watched, Boboy Garovillo of the relatively newer singing trio Apo Hiking Society ad-libbed "doon sa amin sa K-3rd" during a skit.
There were other countless musically inclined people from our town, not only those Hollywood copycats, but also those who were formally trained in classical music and in the more traditional musical instruments like piano and violin. Special mention also goes to those who chose to maintain and preserve the true-Filipino traditional kundiman. Among them were high school performers Jose Balce and Clemencio Mergal. Rolando Landicho, another kundiman enthusiast, still sings regularly on the radio.
Estela Salvosa-Villanueva, until recently a resident of Toronto, sang, wrote, arranged and produced religious music recordings. Estela passed away recently.
Romeo Luz, now a Chicago resident, earned the moniker "Cugat" as a popular Kamuning neighborhood piano player and occasional night club performer. Danilo Jarquio and Tony Victoria, both US residents now, were among the many talented back-up and session musicians of our town.
The name Kamuning rhymes with the Sinatra song "Ring-a-ding-ding". The place may not be Ol' Blue Eyes' kind of town, but at the very least, it's a town with a cool sounding name. The place is a far cry from the grandeur of Nashville or Motown, but Kamuning, inspite of its diminutive image, has its own rich musical history.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Seattle
I came back to California after spending a few days in Seattle with my college friends.
On my first day back at work, my co-worker greeted me:
"Welcome back, Tone. How's Seattle?"
"It's great, man. We enjoyed the reunion with my friends."
"Did you go to Pike Market?"
"Yes, my wife bought some stuff there."
"Did you take the Boeing tour?"
"Yes, I bought myself a nice "Future of Flight" jacket there."
My co-worker who is also an architect continued asking:
"Did you see the Seattle Library?"
"Yes. Interesting architecture." I answered.
He then asked:"Did you go see Bruce Lee's grave?"
"No, man. Why would I do that?
My co-worker who like me is also Asian, snapped back:
"Shoot, man, what kind of Asian bro are you. You went to Seattle and didn't pay your respects to Bruce Lee. His son Brandon is also buried there, next to him." He then raised his hand in mock disgust, squinted and did a quick karate stance a la Bruce Lee.
Anyway, I tried to continue working where I left off the previous week, but I could not concentrate. My mind was still in that part of the city called Tukwila, where most of us in the
group stayed. It was just great hanging out with college buddies again, many of whom I have not seen or heard from in some 44 years.
Ampy and I liked Seattle inspite of the rain. We enjoyed looking at the lush vegetation, something we don't have in our arrid location in San Bernardino. Next time we get a chance, we'd like to visit Seattle again. Hopefully we can stay longer, explore and see more places in the city and surrounding areas.
Including perhaps a Bruce Lee gravesite tour.
On my first day back at work, my co-worker greeted me:
"Welcome back, Tone. How's Seattle?"
"It's great, man. We enjoyed the reunion with my friends."
"Did you go to Pike Market?"
"Yes, my wife bought some stuff there."
"Did you take the Boeing tour?"
"Yes, I bought myself a nice "Future of Flight" jacket there."
My co-worker who is also an architect continued asking:
"Did you see the Seattle Library?"
"Yes. Interesting architecture." I answered.
He then asked:"Did you go see Bruce Lee's grave?"
"No, man. Why would I do that?
My co-worker who like me is also Asian, snapped back:
"Shoot, man, what kind of Asian bro are you. You went to Seattle and didn't pay your respects to Bruce Lee. His son Brandon is also buried there, next to him." He then raised his hand in mock disgust, squinted and did a quick karate stance a la Bruce Lee.
Anyway, I tried to continue working where I left off the previous week, but I could not concentrate. My mind was still in that part of the city called Tukwila, where most of us in the
group stayed. It was just great hanging out with college buddies again, many of whom I have not seen or heard from in some 44 years.
Ampy and I liked Seattle inspite of the rain. We enjoyed looking at the lush vegetation, something we don't have in our arrid location in San Bernardino. Next time we get a chance, we'd like to visit Seattle again. Hopefully we can stay longer, explore and see more places in the city and surrounding areas.
Including perhaps a Bruce Lee gravesite tour.
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